#maybe it’s not fun or comfortable for me to identify with being an Adult Masculine Manly Man

[vampire-nyx]

I always feel like strangely embarrassed when I earnestly like and use and identify with a term other people really seriously hate, like oh no. Am I doing self identification wrong

[roadtohappy]

Why I detransitioned

I mentioned it briefly in response to someone else’s post, but I believe this subject deserves a post of its own. It included the statement: “I detransitioned because my identity changed, and I don’t regret my transition”, to which I expressed how much it resonated with me - and here’s why.

I was, I am, and I always will be transgender. As a young girl, I developed gender dysphoria. To anyone who’s unfamiliar with what that means, gender dysphoria is a term used to describe the emotional pain and distress a person experiences when their biological sex and their self-perceived gender do not match - a body/brain incongruence, if you will.

When I came out of the closet and told my family and peers that I identified as male, I had already spent a considerable amount of time contemplating my situation. I questioned myself constantly, and doubted every answer. I did this prior to, and after coming out, and even during my social and medical transition. Not because I was unsure of myself, but because I needed to know if there was any chance that my gender dysphoria could’ve been caused by something other than simply being transgender. It was important for me to unveil and deal with any underlying issues that could’ve been linked to my gender-identity, because it’s better to find out early on and stop before you find yourself overwhelmed with regret later in life if it turns out that you were actually mistaken. I asked myself the same questions constantly; “Am I being influenced by my peers? Media? Online communities?” “Is my brain using this as a defense mechanism to mask childhood trauma?” “Am I using my trans identity to escape from my past/present problems?” “Do I have any undiagnosed psychiatric or medical conditions that could alter how I perceive myself?” “Can I learn to cope with my gender dysphoria without transitioning?” “Am I trying to mend the absence of my father and lack of male role models by becoming male myself?” “Do I have any unhealthy ideas of what it means to be a woman?” “Do I have enough strong female role models in my life?” “Am I simply not ready to become a woman yet? if so, why?”

-These are all questions you should never ever be afraid to ask yourself, no matter where you are in your transition - whether you’re in the closet or out. Early, mid or late-transition; it is never a bad time to discover yourself and make the best choices for yourself, wherever they may lead you. This is not at all meant to discourage anyone from transitioning, but rather inspire people to ask them self the right questions.

As I mentioned in my introduction-post; I started living as a boy at 15, meaning I wore boy’s clothes, and went by a male name and male pronouns. I started taking male hormones when I was 18. If you’re unfamiliar with what hormone therapy does for trans people, it essentially means that you’re taking hormones regularly to induce a second puberty in order to bring on characteristics of your identified gender. I’m now 21 years old and I had chest-masculinization surgery 8 months ago. I never wanted to go any further than hormones and top-surgery, as my dysphoria mainly revolved around my feminine voice and other minor characteristics, and my breasts. The further I progressed into my transition, my gender dysphoria decreased, as you’d expect. After having my top-surgery, I also no longer feel dysphoric about my chest. To my surprise, I now feel completely comfortable with my natural body, including my femininity.

Early 2020 when the lockdown started, I began to spend more time alone by myself, going on long nature walks and exploring my thoughts through art and creative activities as a way to “unlearn” some of the unhealthy masking-behaviors I’ve taught myself over the years, in order to fit in better among other people. (Very common coping mechanism in autistic people, apparently.) As I began this process of “un-masking” I made it my top-priority to stop caring so much about what other people think of me or how other people expect me to look, talk and act. My new mindset became something along the lines of “Okay, the way my brain is built means that I experience the world and process information differently from other people, which also means that my actions and feelings are based on a different set of experiences than other people. I will no longer measure my worth by my ability to blend in and be ‘normal’, and I will no longer apologize for being different.” And so began a whole new level of self-exploration. I played around with some of my old make-up, I started taking up fun activities that most people would deem feminine - and it didn’t make me feel dysphoric at all. In fact, I liked it. I was unapologetically leaning into my feminine side and it felt good, it felt right, it felt safe - an experience I was never able to have before I transitioned.

When the semester came to an end a few weeks ago, I found myself in a weird position. I now have two completely empty months ahead of me, I truly detest big changes like that. A solid everyday schedule sort of functions as a mental “anchor” for me. Because no matter what happens in my life, I know one thing for certain; I will go to sleep tonight, wake up in the morning, do my morning routine and get ready, get the bus at exactly 7:41AM and arrive at school 10-15 minutes later depending on the traffic. I then attend class and adhere to the school’s timetables for the next 6 hours. I get the bus home and change into my uniform, work for 5 hours, go home and do my homework, make dinner, do something fun or watch youtube, go to bed - and the cycle continues. These little “anchors” make me feel secure and grounded, they help me cope with a world that can feel chaotic and overwhelming at times. 

So last day of school arrives and I’m like “shit, what now?? One day I’m at school and suddenly there’s just *nothing* for two months?? Not only that, but I’ve just discovered that there’s a whole new side of me that I’m now free to explore since my gender dysphoria decided to evaporate into thin air.” Everything around me was changing, even myself - and that’s the moment when I decided that maybe it was time to give Testosterone a break. Whether temporary or permanently, doesn’t matter. It’s not like my body is going anywhere and I can always just resume hormone therapy again if I want to. But for now, it was time to just take a break, let go of everything and truly get to know myself. My transition is complete, and I am ready to continue this journey in a new direction. It’s been a month now, and I’m happy to say I’ve had a lot of fun just enjoying the time off and being my authentic self. I haven’t really told anyone I’m detransitioning. I’m just kinda doing my own thing, and if people want to run along with it and refer to be as female at some point then that’s their choice, I don’t really care to be honest. Name-wise, I might just jokingly suggest “Jane” when people ask, since it’s so similar to “Jake”.  I get weird looks from people when I’m out in public, because I’m starting to pass as female again, but my voice is unmistakably masculine - I like my voice though, so I don’t care what they think. If people ask why my voice is so deep, I just tell them the truth: “I am a woman, but my body was testosterone-dominant for 3 years, hence the voice.” Simple as, lol. Not only that, but I am a whole, grown ass adult, I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.

On the topic of irreversible changes, there is one important thing that I cannot stress enough; My decision to detransition does not come from a place of regret, I have loved and cherished every step of this process. I’ve heard a lot of people say this about detransitioners but I don’t have “reverse-dysphoria”, why would I?  Man or woman, I love myself and my body regardless. I absolutely needed to transition from female to male in order to be happy, I could not have attained this level of happiness otherwise. I would not have been able to accept or even come to terms with my femininity if I hadn’t transitioned. I’m still on the same journey as before, I simply took a new path.

Anyway, I best end this wall of text because it’s 3:00AM and I’m going on a 9km hike with a friend in the morning, I can’t waiiiitttt!

[mindfulwrathwrites]

What Does Transness Feel Like?

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One of the most common gaps in understanding I see from cisgender (“not-trans”) folks is that they find it extremely difficult to conceptualize what transness even is. The frame of reference is simply non-existent, and this can make it very difficult to have empathy for the kinds of things trans folks go through on a daily basis. Common questions include: “How did you know?” “How can you feel like a different gender?” “Why does it matter so much what people call you?”

And I get it, I do. It’s hard to understand something you’ve never experienced. So, for the cis folks in my audience (i.e. those who identify completely with the gender they were assigned at birth), we’re going to go through some thought exercises.

I will also add this caveat: every trans person is different, therefore every trans experience is different. I can only explain from my own frame of reference and try to highlight the most common commonalities I’ve seen in the community. If you really want to “get it,” I encourage you to talk with a diversity of trans people—trans women and trans men, nonbinary trans people (masculine, feminine, both, other, none of the above), trans people of color, disabled trans people, Jewish and Muslim trans people, etc. etc. etc. There are a lot of trans experiences that I personally don’t experience.

Example 1: Physical Dysphoria

Think of a close friend or family member whose gender is different from yours—for preference, someone close to your own age, like a sibling or a partner. Imagine you wake up in their body.

Take a moment to look at yourself from the first-person perspective. What do your hands look like now? When you look towards your belly-button, what do you see? When you look in the mirror, what kind of face is looking back? Remember that it’s your face, now, your hands, your body. What do you smell like this morning? What’s the texture of your hair, if you have it today? How tall are you? Will your clothes, the clothes you wore yesterday, still fit you? What does your voice sound like when you say good morning?

What are the differences between what you expect to see and what you do see? What if those differences are permanent? Is it okay if you can never change back, if you’re stuck in this body forever? Will you get used to it? Will you ever expect to see this new body, this new face, when you look in the mirror?

Would you try to get your old body back? How hard would you try? Why would you try that hard? If you couldn’t get your old body back, if your old body was gone (and the person you swapped with didn’t need theirs back), would you try to change the new one to be more like the old? What would you be willing to go through to have a body that almost fit, rather than one that didn’t fit at all?

In this example, the difference between what you see and what you feel, that mismatched expectation, is what lies at the root of my physical gender dysphoria. When you’re suddenly body-swapped, of course, you know why this body you’re in looks and feels mismatched—but imagine you grew up in that body. Imagine puberty, when these things that aren’t yours begin to appear in earnest. Maybe it would have been so wrong, so distressing, that you would have known right away why. Maybe you wouldn’t have. Maybe you weren’t aware that pain was not a normal part of growing up. Maybe you just didn’t know there was any other option.

If you grew up in a body that didn’t fit you, it might take you a long, long time to figure out why you were chafing. It might take some deep, rigorous soul-searching. It might take extensive discussion with other people who had the same problems and managed to figure it out. Many trans folks don’t figure out they’re trans until they’re adults, in their 20s or 30s or 40s or older, because they don’t have the frame of reference, either. Some never figure it out. I count myself lucky that I got there as early as I did.

Example 2: Social Dysphoria

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re pretty comfortable in your other-gender body for the moment. You’ve taken some time at home to get used to it, figured out how it works, and generally aren’t upset by it. You’ve accepted how you look and feel at this point, and you’re ready to get back out into the world.

Remember: you’re still you. Same name, same gender, same title and pronouns. Different body.

First question: how do you dress before you leave the house? Do you wear your clothes, or do you wear the clothes of the person whose body you’re in? Is it more important to match your interior experience, or your exterior appearance? If you dress in your clothes, will you be safe outside? Will you be laughed at, shunned, perhaps even assaulted?

Get dressed. You’re going to be late for work.

Let’s say you take the bus. Does the bus driver call you sir today, or ma’am? How do you feel when they do? Maybe it doesn’t bother you. Maybe you brush it off. You thank them—what does your voice sound like? Does it reinforce the bus driver’s choice of words? Does it match you?

Who do you sit next to on the bus? Who chooses to sit next to you? How do the other passengers look at you, and who are they seeing when they do? Are they seeing you, or just the body you’re in?

How did you dress this morning? Are you safe?

Let’s say you get to work with no further issues. Your coworkers call you by the name that goes with the body you’re in, use the pronouns that come attached. As far as they know, this is how you’ve always looked, how they’ve always referred to you. Do you correct them? Do you say, actually, no, today it’s different? If you asked them to accommodate you, would they? Would you feel safe asking them? Would you feel safe asking the same of your boss?

How do your coworkers talk to you? Is it the same way they’ve always talked to you, or are there subtle differences? Are you being taken more or less seriously? Who’s chummier all of a sudden, and who’s making you uncomfortable? Who are you making uncomfortable? Are you overreacting? Do you bite your tongue at the water cooler when somebody tells a funny story about you and six times in a row uses the wrong pronouns? Do you correct them when they introduce you to the new hire with the wrong name, wrong title, wrong gender?

All your documents, your email, the display on the phone, all have the wrong name on them, too. Does it bother you? Does it start to wear on you?

Breakfast was a few hours ago. Biology is calling. Which bathroom do you use? Which bathroom is it safe for you to use? Do you trust your coworkers? Do you really, really trust your coworkers? Or maybe you went out to lunch. There’s bathrooms at the restaurant, Men and Women. Which one do you use? Who will recognize you as belonging? Which would you be comfortable in? Where are you least likely to be assaulted or harassed? Where are you safe?

How did you dress this morning?

In this example, there is again a mismatch, but this time between perception and internal experience—for me, this is the root cause of social gender dysphoria. A trans person can be perfectly comfortable in their body when they’re alone, but inhabiting the social space of a different gender is, to a greater or lesser extent, distressing. It can be difficult to untangle social dysphoria from the fear of harm that comes with being trans in a transphobic society. Do I avoid wearing skirts because I don’t want to be seen as female, or because I’m afraid of being assaulted? I might like to wear a skirt, I might think they’re fun and comfortable—but I have a beard, broad shoulders and a square jaw, a deep voice. I am consistently read as ‘male’ when I’m out in public. Is it safe for me to wear a skirt outside? Is it safe for me to use public restrooms today? Whether or not I’m comfortable with my current presentation has an awful lot to do with who’s looking.

Example 3: Gender Euphoria

Maybe none of this is distressing to you. Maybe the answers to all of those questions up there are easy. Maybe none of it is a big deal.

But now, let’s say that after all of this has transpired, after you’ve been through a week or a month or a year of being body-swapped, imagine you wake up back in your body, just the way it was when you left it. All your scars in their places, every freckle right where you left it, your hair the right texture and your voice the right tone. Everyone uses the right name for you, the right pronouns, the right title. Maybe you’re absolutely elated! Maybe this brings such joy to you that you never, ever want to swap bodies again, even though being in the other body didn’t bother you at all.

This isn’t as a huge of a deviation from the trans experience as you might think—some trans people don’t experience dysphoria at all! And, in that same vein, some cis people do experience dysphoria—a cis woman who grows a beard may experience the same dysphoria as a trans woman who grows a beard; a cis man who is shorter than average may experience the same dysphoria as a short trans man.

Many trans people experience, rather than gender dysphoria, gender euphoria, where being in a body or a social space that matches their internal experience brings them great joy, rather than just an easing of pain. Even if there was no pain to start off with, occupying and presenting as their internally experienced gender, rather than the one they were assigned at birth, brings them immense pleasure and fulfillment.

Personally, I experience both gender dysphoria and gender euphoria. Being called by the wrong name or the wrong pronouns makes me feel physically ill. I detest the width of my hips, lament my lack of Adam’s apple, and get an ache in my chest when I have to stand in a group of other men who are all six inches taller than me. I hated my breasts so much that I had them surgically removed (I try not to say “I had my chest fixed,” because it wasn’t broken, even though it was deeply, intrinsically wrong for me). But I love my voice, love how it sounds when I speak and when I sing; I adore the shape of my jaw and the way my new beard draws attention to it; there is music in my name today.

From the age of twelve to the age of twenty-six, I was never, not once, comfortable. Sometimes I was in pain, sometimes I wasn’t, but there was never a time when I was comfortable.

It took less than six months of hormone replacement therapy to fix that.

I can’t tell you what the Trans Experience is. There are as many trans experiences as there are trans people. I hope, however, that giving you a window into my trans experience has given you a little more perspective, a little clearer frame of reference for the next trans experience you hear.

Be gentle with people, stand up to bigots, and for God’s sake don’t ask anybody about their genitals.

[stars--n--stripes-blog]

Like any religion, wokeness understands the need to convert children. The old Jesuit motto (sometimes attributed to Voltaire) was, after all, “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” And so I was moved but not particularly surprised by George Packer’s tale of a progressive school banishing separate restrooms for boys and girls because this reinforces the gender binary. The school did not inform parents of this, of course:

Parents only heard about it when children started arriving home desperate to get to the bathroom after holding it in all day. Girls told their parents mortifying stories of having a boy kick open their stall door. Boys described being afraid to use the urinals. Our son reported that his classmates, without any collective decision, had simply gone back to the old system, regardless of the new signage: Boys were using the former boys’ rooms, girls the former girls’ rooms. This return to the familiar was what politicians call a “commonsense solution.” It was also kind of heartbreaking.

As an analogy for the price of progressivism, it’s close to perfect. Authorities impose an ideology onto reality; reality slowly fights back. The question is simply how much damage is done by this kind of utopianism before it crumbles under its own weight. Simple solutions — like a separate, individual gender-neutral bathroom for the tiny minority with gender dysphoria or anyone else — are out of bounds. They are, after all, reinforcing the idea that girls and boys are different. And we cannot allow biology, evolution, reproductive strategy, hormones, chromosomes, and the customs of every single human culture since the beginning of time to interfere with “social justice.”

It’s also vital to expose children to the fact of their race as the core constituent of their identity. Here is an essay written by a woke teacher about the difficulty of teaching “White boys”:

I spend a lot of my days worried about White boys. I worry about White boys who barely try and expect to be rewarded, who barely care and can’t stand being called on it, who imagine they can go through school without learning much without it impacting in any way the capacity for their future success, just because it never has before.

This sounds to me as if he is describing, well, boys of any race. And when boys are labeled as “White” (note the capital “W”) and this requires specific rules not applied to nonwhite boys, they often — surprise! — don’t like it:

This week, a student spoke up in class to say that every time a particular writer talked about White people and their role in racism, he would start to feel really guilty, and it made him not want to listen … I try to keep an arm around the boys who most need it, but it’s hard, because I’m also not willing to give an inch on making my room safe for my students of color. It’s not their job to keep hurting while White boys figure it out.

Children, in other words, are being taught to think constantly about race, and to feel guilty if they are the wrong one. And, of course, if they resist, that merely proves the point. A boy who doesn’t think he is personally responsible for racism is merely reflecting “white fragility” which is a function of “white supremacy.” QED. No one seems to have thought through the implications of telling white boys that their core identity is their “whiteness,” or worried that indoctrinating kids into white identity might lead quite a few to, yes, become “white identitarians” of the far right.

One of the key aspects about social-justice theory is that it’s completely unfalsifiable (as well as unreadable); it’s a closed circle that refers only to itself and its own categories. (For a searing take down of this huge academic con, check out Douglas Murray’s superb new book, The Madness of Crowds.) The forces involved — “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” “heterosexism” — are all invisible to the naked eye, like the Holy Spirit. Their philosophical origins — an attempt by structuralist French philosophers to rescue what was left of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s — are generally obscured in any practical context. Like religion, you cannot prove any of its doctrines empirically, but children are being forced into believing them anyway. This is hard, of course, as this teacher explains: “I’m trying. I am. But you know how the saying goes: You can lead a White male to anti-racism, but you can’t make him think.”

The racism, sexism, and condescension in those sentences! (The teacher, by the way, is not some outlier. In 2014, he was named Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year!) Having taken one form of religion out of the public schools, the social-justice left is now replacing it with the doctrines of intersectionality.

Last week, I defended drag queens reading stories to kids in libraries. I don’t take back my words. Getting children interested in reading with costumed clowns strikes me as harmless. But when I was directed to the website of Drag Queen Story Hours, I found the following:

[DQSH] captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.

However well-meant, this is indoctrination into an ideology, not campy encouragement for reading and fun.

And then there is the disturbing “social justice” response to gender-nonconforming boys and girls. Increasingly, girly boys and tomboys are being told that gender trumps sex, and if a boy is effeminate or bookish or freaked out by team sports, he may actually be a girl, and if a girl is rough and tumble, sporty, and plays with boys, she may actually be a boy.

In the last few years in Western societies, as these notions have spread, the number of children identifying as trans has skyrocketed. In Sweden, the number of kids diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a phenomenon stable and rare for decades, has, from 2013 to 2016, increased almost tenfold. In New Zealand, the rate of girls identifying as boys has quadrupled in the same period of time; in Britain, where one NHS clinic is dedicated to trans kids, there were around a hundred girls being treated in 2011; by 2017, there were 1,400.

Possibly this sudden surge is a sign of pent-up demand, as trans kids emerge from the shadows, which, of course, is a great and overdue thing. The suffering of trans kids can be intense and has been ignored for far too long. But maybe it’s also some gender non-conforming kids falling prey to adult suggestions, or caused by social contagion. Almost certainly it’s both. But one reason to worry about the new explosion in gender dysphoria is that it seems recently to be driven by girls identifying as boys rather than the other way round. Female sexuality is more fluid and complex than male sexuality, so perhaps girls are more susceptible to ideological suggestion, especially when they are also taught that being a woman means being oppressed.

In the case of merely confused or less informed kids, the consequences of treatment can be permanent. Many of these prepubescent trans-identifying children are put on puberty blockers, drugs that suppress a child’s normal hormonal development, and were originally designed for prostate cancer and premature puberty. The use of these drugs for gender dysphoria is off-label, unapproved by the FDA; there have been no long-term trials to gauge the safety or effectiveness of them for gender dysphoria, and the evidence we have of the side effects of these drugs in FDA-approved treatment is horrifying. Among adults, the FDA has received 24,000 reports of adverse reactions, over half of which it deemed serious. Parents are pressured into giving these drugs to their kids on the grounds that the alternative could be their child’s suicide. Imagine the toll of making a decision about your child like that?

Eighty-five percent of gender-dysphoric children grow out of the condition — and most turn out to be gay. Yes, some are genuinely trans and can and should benefit from treatment. And social transition is fine. But children cannot know for certain who they are sexually or emotionally until they have matured past puberty. Fixing their “gender identity” when they’re 7 or 8, or even earlier, administering puberty blockers to kids as young as 12, is a huge leap in the dark in a short period of time. It cannot be transphobic to believe that no child’s body should be irreparably altered until they are of an age and a certainty to make that decision themselves.

I don’t have children, but I sure worry about gay kids in this context. I remember being taunted by some other kids when I was young — they suggested that because I was mildly gender-nonconforming, I must be a girl. If my teachers and parents and doctors had adopted this new ideology, I might never have found the happiness of being gay and comfort in being male. How many gay kids, I wonder, are now being led into permanent physical damage or surgery that may be life-saving for many, but catastrophic for others, who come to realize they made a mistake. And what are gay adults doing to protect them? Nothing. Only a few ornery feminists, God bless them, are querying this.

In some ways, the extremism of the new transgender ideology also risks becoming homophobic. Instead of seeing effeminate men as one kind of masculinity, as legitimate as any other, transgenderism insists that girliness requires being a biological girl. Similarly, a tomboy is not allowed to expand the bandwidth of what being female can mean, but must be put into the category of male. In my view, this is not progressive; it’s deeply regressive. There’s a reason why Iran is a world leader in sex-reassignment surgery, and why the mullahs pay for it. Homosexuality in Iran is so anathema that gay boys must be turned into girls, and lesbian girls into boys, to conform to heterosexual norms. Sound a little too familiar?

Adults are increasingly forced to obey the new norms of “social justice” or be fired, demoted, ostracized, or canceled. Many resist; many stay quiet; a few succumb and convert. Children have no such options.

Indoctrinate yourselves as much as you want to, guys. It’s a free country. But hey, teacher — leave those kids alone.

By Andrew Sullivan

[jaimistoryteller]

OC/Author PrideFest Question Mess Part 2

Thanks for the tag @raevenlywrites! I am now up to all the people who liked my post with the link character list having received at least one (mostly more) questions from me.

Rules I am going with: answer the questions you know or are comfortable sharing, tag others, add a question if you feel like something is missing.

Note: I will be answering in three different posts, one per section, rather than all together because of how many questions there are.

Questions for you:

Introduce yourself! Tell us a little bit about you and what you write

Why do you write LGBT+ characters?

Have you always written LGBT+ characters? If no, what inspired you to start? Is it a deliberate representational choice?

Do you use modern labels in your work? Why or why not?

World builders: do you have any neat societal twists? (unique names for IDs, different marriage practices, etc.)

Do you write outside your own experiences? (cis writing trans, wlw writing mlm, etc.) If yes, how confident do you feel about it?

Tell us about a favorite book/character someone else wrote that inspired you (or just plain gave you a warm and fuzzy)

Any advice for someone else writing LGBT+ characters?

Would you like people to ask you more questions when this is over?

Free space! Wax poetic about something near and dear to your heart.

Questions for your Ocs (in character or out, dealer’s choice):

Going to answer these like I would a Q&A post, with the first three characters that comes to mind for each question. 

Say hi! Let us get to know you, you big beautiful person, you!

Sparks  *grins and waves* I definitely qualify as big at 6′9, sadly I lost some height due to my teenage activities. Sitara and Aither both think I look good, though really I don’t see it half the time. 

Lettie *snickers and gives a graceful bow* I always startle people with the fact I am not clumsy. Too many skinny and slender folks need to get the idea out of their head that big does not equal able. I enjoy having clothes altered for me and enjoying as people stare at how perfectly I carry myself. 

Lo *smiles and invites everyone in for tea or other beverage of choice* what would you like to discuss? There are plenty of things I know, both about the Network and the world in general. *they play with the many bracelets on their left arm*

How do you feel about the world your author has created for you?

Aither - it’s better than the world the author lives in. Seriously, the author needs a few people like myself and Jon to help deal with some problems in the government, and if our more diplomatic (aka hacking for those who don’t know) methods don’t know, well, we have access to bunch of assassins, not even counting our significant others. 

[Author: seriously Aither?]

Lo *listens to the question as they settle on their seat, adjusting their robe like outfit to fan out* there are times I wish it was a bit more accepting of people like myself. However, Aither is correct in saying it is much better than the one the author is from. 

[Author: this is going to be a thing.]

Tichina - I am a solidly built WOC in a position of power and respected. While there have been struggles in my life, there have been a lot of times that are better than expected. I am able to save my kids (the teenagers and young adults on my sports teams and in my neighborhood) from the gangs and lives of poverty through education and opportunity. That counts for a lot considering out parallel world is not nearly as forgiving from my understanding. 

[Author: *sighs dramatically* this is what I get for being honest with them.]

Are you out? To whom, why or why not, etc?

Jon - pretty much everyone who has ever met me realizes that I am not quite like  the majority of people. Particularly if they start talking about how hot or attractive someone is. 

Isaac - I came out to my family as genderfluid and was promptly kicked out, since then I don’t really talk about it, I just live it.

Nazreen - only to my soulmates am I out. To everyone else I tell them to mind their business.

Tell us a little about your journey. Have you always IDed the way you do now? Are there parts of you you’re still figuring out?

Vasilia - I spent my childhood perfectly content as a boy, it wasn’t until I started going through puberty that I started feeling off. At which point I started lashing out. 

At everyone. It was the guard, Isa, that actually helped me realize what was going on as I watched them move around with complete confidence in the fact that they are not a man or a woman. 

Uncle Akaal put in some huge libraries in the building when we first moved in that are always being added to. Actually, those might be from Uncle Isha and Luc, and Aunt Aither. Anyways, I was able to do some research in them. I went through several labels before realizing I am a transwoman. My siblings and cousins were supportive along the way, and Uncle Akaal made sure I had everything I needed or wanted to try. 

Isaak - I’m still figuring myself out. I’m pretty sure that I am uninterested in sex, not sure if it’s because I am demi, ace, or simply haven’t met anyone I find appealing enough because I am picky. Or maybe it’s because of how focused I am on my studies. I’m not sure. *shrugs* at least I know my family will be supportive no matter how it goes. 

Marie - the first thing I realized when I entered puberty is the fact I like women, not men. My parents trying to have the safe sex talk with me was a hoot, at least looking back on that talk it was. At the time I blushed up a storm. 

Do you feel settled in your ID, or do you think it might change as you and your author go on?

Isaak - it’ll probably change since it’s not firm at this point. Besides, I’m four when the author meets me, and in my late teens when I start babbling about what I want with my future, there is plenty of time for growth and discovery. I have an entire book, maybe more to grow in! (thank you @lady-redshield-writes @essagandana @raevenlywrites and @ratracechronicler for encouraging the author on that. I love the fact I get a moon base farm!!!)

[Author: *sighs*]

Ioanna - I don’t know who I am. I hope to find out at some point, right now I am simply hurt and confused most the time, so I hope it will change as we go!

Diego - I like growing and changing, and hopefully I will continue to do so. I also like surprising the author, because it’s fun! Beside, the very nature of science is change. 

[Author: does anyone else’s characters make a point of driving them up a wall?]

Did your author always know you were [blank], or did you have to tell them? If yes, oh please, please tell us how! :3

Nazreen - I had to inform the author of my nature and I took my time doing so because I don’t like to talk about myself or share private details. The author only figured it out because I am sex repulsed and have a male soulmate who is not. Though he has been very good to me, accepting my boundaries in a way my ex-husband never did. 

Aither - oh yeah, the author always knew I was pan, even before knowing the actual word for it. Back then omnis-nihil which is extremely choppy Latin for ‘all-any’. 

Arona - no, the author didn’t always know, that detail was figured out when I had a freak out over the fact that I’m intersex and that’s why I haven’t gone through puberty like my sisters. It also happened to be the day my first soulmark started to appear. 

Is being [blank] particularly hard in your world? How does your society treat you differently than ours might?

Lo *makes sure everyone has drinks as they consider the answer* for the most part I am left alone and to my own devices. From my understanding of the author’s world, I would have probably ended up leaving my home and becoming a traveler trying to find a safe haven. Although, I have a feeling I wouldn’t be able to unless I bought an island in the middle of nowhere since things seem to be getting worse in the author’s world, not better.

[Author: really Lo? You couldn’t have just left it at ‘my world’s better?]

No. 

Isaac - being genderfluid can be complicated. It’s not one of the socially accepted ‘norms’ so people can be idiots about it. In a lot of ways they are the same, I can’t think of anything major different. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to get a job quite so easily? Dunno. 

Aaron - it’s considered perfectly normal, so it is ignored by most. In the author’s world I might have had to worry about bigots or conversion therapy. The fact I am markless is more tricky than my orientation. 

Tell us a little about your unique experiences with your ID. Do you experience dysphoria? Is it impossible to find a date? Just want to find that special someone for snuggles but everyone expects sex? Unload for a minute, it’s okay to struggle sometimes.

Jamie - while rare, there are times I have to deal with dysphoria, that happens more on days I have a sudden shift from masculine to feminine. Particularly if the shift involves feeling like my chest is suddenly too flat. 

Dates are generally easy for me. I’m good at getting people to take me to dinner, dancing, movies, whatever sort of activity I feel like doing that night. 

I enjoy sex but get tired of having to explain myself first, so it doesn’t happen often. I don’t really trust people, so finding someone to snuggle with gets complicated at times because of that little detail. 

I work off a lot of frustrations in my grifting. Particularly on jerks who like to cause problems for people like me. It’s actually how I met Aither actually.

Vasilia - my dysphoria was a large part of why I was lashing out, as soon as it was identified Uncle Akaal made sure I got what I needed to help with it. There was some trial and error as we figured it out, and boy did I feel awkward discussing it with my Uncle, so he talked to Uncle Isha who then put me in touch with some other transladies. 

I’m a teenager for most of the story, and working on figuring out who I like so those don’t really apply yet?

I have bad days where I wish I would have been born a lady without having to go through all the processes to become one. I sometimes wish that I could have children, even though I know it’s probably never going to have. I want to be the carrier mother, even if I can’t be. Those thoughts are more common as I get older and my soulmarks start to appear. A lot of times on those days I end up curled up with my sister. She holds me while I cry and mourn what I can’t have. 

[Author: none of the others feels like discussing it right now.]

What’s the best part about being [blank] in your world?

[Author: no one is answering...really? I got over 500 of you peeps and no one wants to answer? Fine. Moving on.]

Do you like getting fan-mail? Would you like people to ask you more questions when this is over?

Lo *beams as they check that everyone still has their refreshments* I would love fan-mail or to have people asking me questions!

Sparks - ask away, I’m sure I am the most boring one in the bunch, but I know a lot of things due to years of working for and dating Aither. 

Vara - I dare you to ask me things.

Grab that mic! Drop some truth on us, something you’ve just been dying to share! Shout out to your besties!

Mara {I didn’t like all the traveling with my handler but I love my human. My human needs me. My human often thinks he isn’t a good human but he is. His mates think he’s great and scent mark him often to reassure him of this. I don’t think he understands. He will in time. I’ll help him.}

[Author: apparently Iov’s service dog would like you to know she love’s her human.]

Sela - my twinlets are awesome! They could have been jerks about the fact I am technically two days younger, instead they declared the three of us have the same birthday. I hope they know how much I love them. 

Pyotr  *rubbing his neck nervously before straightening up to sign* I adore both my soulmates. Never sould I have guessed having a platonic soulmate, a non-romantic platonic soulmate would be in the cards for me, but it’s just right. We’re the best of friends, and I wouldn’t trade Marie for anyone else in the world.  

Questions for either you or your OCs:

What’s your orientation and gender? Wave that flag!!!

When did you realize you were LGBT+?

What makes your heart melt?

Do you have a favorite LGBT+ song? Movie? Book? Artist? (comic?)

Do you have a secret crush outside of your own work? Some wild crossover OTP?

Tell us about your LGTB+ headcannons (I’d really love to see someone’s character answer this)

What’s your favorite thing about being LGBT+?

Is there a cool place you like to hang out with your squad? Maybe an LGBT+ meet up?

What are some things you do to keep positive?

Do you have any advice for young LGBT+ people?

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Tagging some peeps I am getting to know off the writer peeps spreadsheet so they can see my answers or do them as they feel fit.

@racqueljoneswritings  @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword @minor-writer @lexa-scribbles and @ally-thorne

Part 1 and Part 3

[dudence-blog]

Dear Dudence for 1 December 2017

And we are now in December!  Christmas time!  Trees, lights, inflatable penguins!  And drama!  Soooooooooooo much drama.  It is the season for sharing mulled wine with people you like, and who like you back.  So grab a mug of warmed wine, cider, or chocolate and let’s see what sort of problems I can make worse for people I don’t know!

I live in a close-knit neighborhood. In October, my neighbor’s 16-year-old daughter ran over my family’s beloved cat. She was driving irresponsibly and texting, and she was horrified by what she’d done. I have tried not hating her, and I’ve tried telling myself that there’s always a risk that a cat allowed outdoors will be hit by a car. But I’m angry, and the best thing for me now is to keep my distance from the girl and her family. The parents won’t back off, though. Their daughter is traumatized, and they want me to comfort her.

Dear Cat Killer, unexpectedly losing a beloved pet sucks.  And to have it happen because of the negligent actions of a person you need to continue interacting with is doubly sucky.  I’m going to disagree with Newdie though about it not being awful for you to continue to want to emotionally punish your neighbor’s daughter.  You don’t have to forgive her for her actions; she killed a member of your family afterall.  But is “making a child feel terrible and refusing any kindness towards her,” really the hill you wish to die on?  You say you live in a closely-knit neighborhood, so here’s how it’s going to play out.  You’re going to continue to hold this over your neighbor and their daughter.  They’re going to talk with your other neighbors and, eventually, it will come around to the point where you’re being petty, vindictive, and emotionally cruel to not move on.  It was “just a cat” and you did “know what could happen” if you let it roam outside in an area where cars traveled.  In the not-too-distant future you’re going to lose the very loose and sandy moral high ground on which you’re standing, and it’s not going to be fun for you.  I recommend you think long and hard about what sort of acts of contrition you want to see from your neighbor’s kid as a way to earn your forgiveness, and when she achieves that provide it.  At the end of the day the girl is going to eventually forgive herself and move on.  Whether you do or you allow this anger and resentment to eat away at you and your relations with your neighbors is up to you.

I’m a single woman with a large extended family. I cope with the enormous project of buying Christmas presents by getting them very early. Everyone in my family knows this; it’s the family joke that I have all my presents purchased by Halloween. My brother’s wife “Jean” sent out a group text last week saying they have decided not to exchange gifts with the extended family and would only be getting gifts for each other and their own kids. They have five kids, both together and via previous marriages, so I understand, but would have appreciated more notice. My mom asked what I was going to do, and I said I’d keep the gifts for the kids but return the ones I got for my brother and Jean. Unfortunately, my dad, the family big mouth, overheard us and told my brother.

Dear Christmas Gift Drama, Jean is not right.  Christmas is not about gift-giving.  It’s about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.  That we have turned it into a celebration of eating, basketball, giving and exchanging gifts is ancillary to whatever the “meaning” of the holiday is.  Grown-ass people getting their panties in a wad because their grown-ass sibling didn’t get them something after they said they’re not getting the sibling something are pathetic.  You are morally and ethically in the right to return their gifts.  Send them a nice card with a friendly and caring message of love for the holidays.  Although do send the kids their gifts; it’s not their fault their mother acted rudely.

How do I cut off my seemingly well-intentioned family? My whole life, my little sister was the favorite. Growing up, other adults even commented on it to me, which actually helped because it showed me it wasn’t all in my head. On the outside they are a well-meaning Southern family, but to me they are suffocating.

Dear Just Want Out, you’re not going to be able to ghost your own family.  You’re, eventually, going to need to tell them why you’re ignoring them.  Or, you’re going to tell someone why and they’re going to tell them.  So, sack-up and tell them you’re not going to be joining them because it’s not in the budget, whether due to money or time.  Send a polite card wishing them well for the holiday and move on with your life.  Hit “ignore” on the Family Gift Wish List text as well.

I have been struggling with my son for a long time and just don’t know how to get through to him. He started out being very impulsive as a young child, not thinking things through, getting aggressive with other children, and not listening. Once he entered grade school the aggressive behavior toned down significantly, thank goodness, and he appeared to be listening to his teachers. At home is a different story. I’ve been divorced from my son’s father since he was 2-1/2 years old but up until recently he still maintained contact with him. I attributed many of his behaviors to his father’s leniency and lack of discipline. However, my son is nine now and no longer has contact with his father, who is a deadbeat.

Dear At Wits’ End, oof.  This is a heart-breaking letter on several levels.  There’s a whole lot of hurt, pain, and problems in not a lot of space, and much of them are far beyond the capabilities of NuPru or me to address.  As much as I’d like to join in NuPru’s condemnation of your actions and the consequence it has had on your son I’m not going to.  Parenting is hard, single-parenting harder still, and even the best, most wonderful, and well-intentioned people can fail when pushed hard enough.  Hitting your kid in anger is a terrible thing to do, your 9 year old cannot have done anything to justify such violence, it’s not going to result in the behavior you want, and will likely get you seriously hemmed up by the law.  Maybe she’s right that your actions have left your son unable to form friendships or fail to hit developmental milestones, but it’s also possible there are some underlying medical issues which could be at play, and the healing power of “and” is always at work.  Certainly your actions and attitude towards him aren’t helping, but without identifying that possibility you’re going to be swimming against the stream even more than you are now.  You need to get yourself some help to deal with your anger and stress.  You need to get your son some help as well; his school district almost certainly has some resources to identify if he has a developmental issue.  And it’s not likely his teachers haven’t noticed his behavior, so it’s probably something someone there is considering.  After you get yourself some help for the anger and control issues it might be worth trying to reestablish a relationship with the boy’s father.  That he became a “deadbeat” while you were belittling his parental choices and escalating the emotional and physical abuse of your shared child might be connected.

I’m a trans woman who’s been in a relationship with a queer cis girl for a couple years. It has slowly come out that my partner wants to “date people who have vaginas.” She’s told me before that she sees herself as having been historically deprived of the ability to date people with vaginas because society has primed her relationship life to involve “people who have penises.” I feel hurt by this analysis, because I honestly have never seen any societal
forces compelling anyone to date trans people like me. This line of logic also seems disingenuous given that she was raised in a cis lesbian household. I feel hurt and inadequate. When we have conversations about this, the conversation always unfolds with her in the role of the victim. This is a difficult dynamic to escape, because she is better than me at using sound social justice rhetoric.

Dear Just Want to Feel Normal, you’re not taking this too personally.  Once we strip away all the gender identifying text this is about your significant other no longer being attracted (as attracted?) to you, wanting to date other people, but wanting to keep you around for their own satisfaction.  Oh, and there’s also a bit of mind-fuckery going on where she’s trying to blame you for not wanting to be her doormat.  Your girlfriend can deploy all the social justice rhetoric she wishes, but it doesn’t change that she’s behaving like an asshole.  It sucks when someone you love reveals they no longer feel the same, and it’s a suck-multiplier when they exploit your own feelings of inadequacy and emotional vulnerabilities at the same time.  Just because you’re trans doesn’t mean you deserve to be treated like your hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is treating you.  You deserve to have a supporting, caring partner who is totally into you, and I hope you find them.

I recently became good friends with “Absalom” and “Richard.” Richard is queer and non-binary but very masculine-presenting, while Absalom is a straight cis man (I myself am a gay cis man). When we first became friends, Richard and I both developed small crushes on Absalom before we knew his sexuality. We both subtly and innocently flirted with him a couple times. After Absalom offhandedly mentioned he was straight, I backed off, no big deal.

Dear Looking for Straight Talk, much like Wanting to Feel Normal, let’s go ahead and strip out the genders, orientation, etc.  Bottom line is one of your friends is romantically pressuring one of your other friends in a way which the object of the affections doesn’t seem to appreciate, is noticed and negatively remarked upon by another group of friends, and which is making you uncomfortable.  You passed the point where Richard’s behavior was “not OK” a while ago.  Actually, you know what, let’s call him Dick.  Absalom is not enthusiastically consenting to Dick’s come-ons and Dick is either not picking up on this, thinks he just needs to apply the right amount of pressure to make Absalom come around, is getting his jollies out of making Absalom have to take his unreciprocated advances, or the healing power of “and”.  Let’s put the genders, orientation, etc back into the question.  Despite what Kevin Spacey says, being non-heteronormative isn’t carte-blanche to behave boorishly.  Honestly, had this situation involved a man making unwelcome advances towards a woman Bad Pru would have been much more straight-forward in her advice and the condemnation of Dick’s behavior.  So I will.  What you’re describing is the sort of sexual impropriety we really shouldn’t tolerate.  Let Dick know it’s “Not Okay”, or, preferably, let Dick know that he’s being a fucking creep.