#not wrestling with dysphoria between male and female

[rowanthestrange]

if i say i headcanon tentwo as a transgrrl with the energy of a shonen anime protagonist, do you get me?

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Can I ask, why do you love BL romance better than het romance? What makes them better? I did not mean anything negative, and I know everyone have their own like and dislike but I want to know your thoughts....

Also what do you think that made Asian MLM (BL manga/manhwa/manhua/tv series/movies) romances better than western MLM romances?

Hello! Yes you are more than welcome to ask :) I truly, truly love getting asks in my inbox and have been having so much fun with the fact I’ve actually been getting some recently! Warning this is long (but i have TL;DRs for everything)

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I think the fastest answer for me is that I am queer, and therefore I find I have a lot more enjoyment and interest in watching queer stories compared to heterosexual ones.

Also, I find a lot of heterosexual romances to be steeped in misogyny, and have low-key or high-key abusive dynamics. And again, do not get me wrong, there are plenty of queer shows where there are abusive dynamics in play, but it is much harder for misogyny to be committed between two men than it is for misogyny to be placed on a male/female pairing. (I love GLs cause, you know…women, but there are a lot more complex dynamics going in to stories written about two women and those can get much trickier for me, and unfortunately many narratives love punishing lesbains with death so.... Anyway, I’m trying to stick mostly to BLs since that is primarily what this ask is about.)

Additionally, I love BLs more than heterosexual romances because of how BLs treat men. Men in heterosexual romances, especially in the West are extremely masculine, often unable to be in touch with their emotions, jaded, misogynistic, they have to be extremely muscular, and we almost never see femme boys or men.

BLs have such a vast range of men, they have twinks, they have femmes, they have gym bros. They have the clowns, and the super masculine boys. There are shows that let boys be boys, be stupid, and stinky, and fucking gross (hey Pat from Bad Buddy), they let boys be angry and aggressive and express their emotions that way (Sean and Yok’s fight in Not Me, Han Baram and Im Hantae’s conversation in the boxing ring in Sing My Crush, Lom and Nuea in The Wedding Plan, Patts in La Pluie), they let boys fight and wrestle and play (Bad Buddy, My School President, Moonlight Chicken, Only Friends). I love queer stories that let men be gay and ensure through the story that that never undermines their masculinity. I love that there are shows that focus on the progress older men can make in their relationships (What Did You Eat Yesterday?) THEY ARE ALSO ALLOWED TO CRY!!!!

And though it is still kind of rare, Asian BLs actually do have femme boys, and while I am sure femme boys exist in Western shows, I think Pose and fucking Glee are like…the only two shows with queer people that I have seen in the last decade that have an femme boy representation at all. On the flip side, I love how often GMMTV puts their boys in drag and that doesn’t even have to be in a queer show. I also generally love the fact that most of the male actors in Asian BLs, and again, especially in Thailand embrace their femme sides in photoshoots and whatnot, that they wear earrings, and jewelry, and makeup and they look hot as fuck, because it helps me with my own gender identity. I feel and see myself much more masculine (and have less dysphoria) when I have an earring or a necklace or makeup on, now that I have seen so many boys do the same. 

TL;DR: I am queer, and heterosexual romances are frequently misogynistic, and men are extremely masculine and rarely allowed to be soft. Asian BLs give us a very broad range of masculinity, but often let boys be boys while also kissing boys. And actors embracing their femme sides helps me feel more masculine when I lean in to my femme side.

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As for Asian MLM romances compared to Western MLM romances, obviously this is not a cut and dry thing, not all Asian BLs are going to be better than Western BLs but I find I have a tendency to enjoy Asian BLs/queer media more for a few reasons, generally in order of most to least important for me:

Reason One- Family

This may seem somewhat surprising because the first, and honestly biggest reason I tend to like Asian BLs more than Western BLs has much less to do with the queer aspect. It's actually the family dynamics. I think Western media very frequently has a tendency to be very binary in their portrayal of family dynamics, if family is at all included in Western narratives the relationships that characters have to their family is either almost wholly good, or almost wholly bad. You either have a very abusive household that a character is trying to avoid or flee, or you have a traditional, happy, nuclear family, and when characters have a strained relationship to their family, I have noticed a lot more narrative support for leaving that family behind. But for the most part, family does not play a huge role in most Western shows (and, wild concept to me, it’s part of why I think shows like Succession are so successful, because that is all about complex, fucked up, and loving relationships within a family). 

Whereas, in Asian media, far more frequently family and family dynamics play a huge role in the character’s lives, behaviors, and can influence the story. And because filial piety is such an important aspect to many Asian cultures, you get a lot more interesting parent/child relationships out of Asian media than you do with Western content. And I am a white Westerner, but I am fundamentally, culturally a Southerner and despite no longer being a woman, I will never shed the mantle of Eldest Daughter. And that has resulted in a sense of family responsibility and piety that ends up making it very very easy for me to understand the motivations of the characters that remain loyal to their family even when their family is asking for things from them that run counter to their own desires or happiness (I’ve actually had this conversation a lot with @waitmyturtles about the intersections of Southern culture and Asian culture).

And similarly, I find that a lot of Western media with queer characters at least in the time frame that I have been able to find content with queer characters is either wholly homophobic, or wholly accepting. And do not get me wrong, we get family dynamics like that in Asian BLs too, but we also get parents who are upset about their child’s queerness, and will voice that, and yet who still take care of their children. I’m thinking of the film I watched just the other day called Margarita with a Straw where the main character’s mother can barely look or talk to her daughter when she comes out, but because she is disabled, her mother is still there preparing food for her, bathing her, etc. because even if she is upset about her child’s queerness she can’t stop taking care of her. And those aren’t dynamics I often see in Western media. 

I don’t see relationships like Sawismol and Wang in Western media, where a mother can look at her child and say, out loud that she is disappointed, and to be upset, and to still, despite everything, be the person that her son goes to for comfort when he is absolutely devastated, and I don’t see Western parents sitting there and performing that comfort even when they are disappointed in their children’s queerness.

TL;DR: Family dynamics feel a lot more built out, realistic, and complex in many Asian BLs/media that I’ve seen, than they do in many Western shows. Until I started watching Asian media, I had not seen the dynamics I have with my mother or my father played out on screen. 

Reason Two- Casual Trans Inclusion 

And, as a trans person myself, part of what makes Asian BL shows, Thai shows much more specifically, so important, interesting, and influential to me when compared to Western BLs is the casual inclusion of trans people. Like, that is just something Western media is barely ready for. It’s not non-existent. We have and have had shows like The Fosters, Sense8, Pose, The Owl House, and Heartstopper that have some trans rep. But a lot of those shows have a hefty component to them that shows the struggles of being trans.

In The Fosters we have to watch Cole nearly die trying to get his hands on testosterone, in Sense8 we have to watch Nomi be kept as a medical prisoner and stripped of her autonomy and almost lobotomized, in Pose we are constantly exposed to the very real dangers that trans women of color experience including murder, in Heartstopper we are spared from having to witness the transphobia Elle went through, but it is mentioned. I think the only one of these shows that doesn’t have some element of struggle because a character is trans is The Owl House and let us not forget that Raine Whispers goes through fucking hell in that show. And these conversations, and the demonstrations of struggle to just survive and thrive despite that is vitally important in a society that is pushing closer and closer towards genocide against trans people. Stories that show the struggles of trans people exist for the sake of realism but also serve as an attempt to try to garner empathy towards trans people by cisgender viewers. 

Thailand does have stories where a trans character experiences transphobia (3 Will Be Free, The Warp Effect, Secret Crush on You), but they also have so many stories where trans people are literally just vibing. Do you know how revolutionary it was for me when I watched KinnPorsche and saw Yok, and she was happy, and beautiful, and fun, and her entire plot centered around her running that bar, flirting with boys, and playing surrogate mother to Porsche? Or just to see trans women existing, who aren’t even central to the plot, but are just there? (Payu’s secretary at the auto shop is a trans woman, Golf Tanwarin was at the inclusive cafe in The Eclipse, Golf Kittipat had an illustrious career as a music producer in My School President). Like that shit is SO important to me, and I never, never see it in Western media. 

TL;DR: There are many Thai shows especially where trans people just exist, and they have plots that aren’t always centered around them being trans. Which is revolutionary, coming in as a trans Western viewer where the majority of trans rep in Western shows makes me eventually have to watch trans people suffer. 

Reason Three- Passion Projects

The film industry is huge and pervasive in Western culture, and in the US especially, and with that comes big budget projects that stretch out as long as they can squeeze a cent out of a fan base. As a result you get shows that are too long, you get shows that ruin their premise in the last season after five to fifteen years of dragging the shambling corpse of a story along. And again, do not get me wrong, there are plenty plenty of Asian BLs that are cash grabs, that are terrible, where the actors aren’t really in it. But, most BLs in Asia are one season, they get in, they get out, and you forget it if it’s bad, or you hate it forever if it’s objectively bigoted. But the time commitment to terrible pieces is a lot shorter. 

That said, when you have a low budget, and a story you want to tell, it makes my love so much more. Because it means the crew, the writers, the director, and often time the actors are there because they want to be there, because they like the story they are telling, because they have a story they want to tell. It’s part of why I love shows like The Eclipse so much, because that show was made with a budget mainly comprised of pocket lint and hope, because Golf Tanwarin had something they wanted to say.  Most if not all of Aof Nopparnach’s shows give genuinely, inherently queer stories that speak to queer people. Jojo Tichakorn makes pieces that are so full of queer lenses you could never deny the inherent queerness in his shows, even if the story is primarily focused on a straight person/relationship (Mama Gogo). There are so many shows in the Asian BL world where you can just tell that everyone is having fun. LIsten, Fish Upon the Sky is an extremely problematic show, but for me it felt like everyone had a great time goofing off on that set. You can tell EV-ER-Y-BOD-Y in the cast of Mama Gogo  was having the time of their motherfucking lives. 

I also think the West is very self-congratulatory and tends to hold themselves as the standard of televisions and acting, when I am over here watching Asian BLs with some of the strongest acting from young people I have ever seen, and having it be written off because its a) low budget b) gay and c) in another language. Like, when I try to get people in to BL I start with shows like KinnPorsche (which I know drives @bnegiyo mad) cause it has a much higher production value than many other Asian BLs without being prestige and therefore can’t radically alter the perception of what BL is (hello ITSAY/IPYTM and 180 Degrees), Thai BLs especially. And I figure that is the only way to show someone the level of absurdity and camp that comes from a lot of BLs, while also maintaining their interest because it has a higher production value, so that if they end up enjoying that they are more willing to watch the low budget shows. 

TL;DR: Many Asian BLs are pretty low budget, compared to like any Western show, which I find to mean we have more stories in Asian BL that people actually want to tell. (there are still very many shows that people seem to just kinda show up for, or get bored with partway through [looking at you Tee] but.)

Reason Four- Abundance

There are 

So 

Many 

Asian 

BLs 

Here's a fraction of my watch list

I have watched 81 in roughly the last year, and there are so many more on my Plan to Watch list, and there are more coming out all the time. The West has given me like…two, maybe three. And when we do get good queer shows in the West, they are frequently canceled before completion. Especially if they are on Netflix. 

We lost Sense8, fans had to fight for Out Flag Means Death to get renewed, The Owl House got cancelled by Disney after giving their main character a girlfriend, ND Stevenson had to write two ending to She-Ra and fought tooth and fucking nail to get the gay one, Legend of Korra had to save the gay kiss until the end just like She-Ra had to. If you want to get depressed here is a link to an article ‘50 TV shows with Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer characters cancelled after one season’. Because most Asian BLs are meant to be only one season, we actually get complete stories, rather than ending with unresolved tension, or cliffhangers. 

TL;DR: there is a metric fuck ton of Asian BLs

Reason Five- Sex

The West, especially the US, tends to have a very puritanical view of sex (which makes sense because the Puritans were some of the first colonizers…I mean colonials…to murder everyone and occupy…uh, I mean settle the United States (I would also like to place blame on the Italians and Spanish [hey Columbus] and their Catholicism AND PROTESTANT CALVINISM that also influenced the pervasive societal views of sex and especially gay sex in the United States).  

With ever increasing homophobia and transphobia, so many shows are trying, in my own personal opinion, to garner empathy, sympathy, and acceptance for queer characters by cisgender and/or heterosexual viewers by making their queer characters flat, two-dimensional, virginal, perfect people. But homophobes and transphobes consider holding hands to be just as grotesque and inappropriate as full on porn. With Western, and especially US based, views of sex, many queer characters are sanitized, sex scenes are rare, and if they do exist at all they are usually in shows that have mature ratings. 

That is not the case with Asian BLs. Like, do not get me wrong, there are plenty of pure, virginal, don’t kiss, barely touch BLs out there, but because there are so many BLs, there are also plenty of shows with lots of physical intimacy and multiple make out scenes that aren’t maturely rated, as well as plenty of maturely rated shows that have multiple sex scenes AND CAN INCLUDE KINK WHICH LIKE!!!!! I rarely see in the Western media I’ve watched. Hell, Sense8 is a sexual liberation show that includes multiple orgies, but there is not even a hint of any other kink (besides whatever Dani, Lito, and Hernando have going on).

gif by @radishayuan

Meanwhile, The Warp Effect has fucking puppy play, Bed Friend has pet play, Laws of Attraction which has a couple pretty chaste kisses shows handcuffs to at least imply kink, there’s a ball gag and a fucking leash in Big Dragon, I haven’t seen it but Unforgotten Night has a lot of BDSM themes in it, Rain and Payu have a dom/sub dynamic going on, we have daddy kinks abound, I also haven’t seen this one but I know there is some belt bondage in War of Y. And even if it isn’t shown, kink and bondage specifically are often referenced in passing in shows with sex.

Also, there are very very very few Western shows I have seen that treat sex workers kindly, and Jojo Tichakorn is right there giving us sex workers as main characters multiple times in a row. Taiwan has great physical chemistry, the very few things I have seen from the Phillipines are so fucking queer, Japan even when they aren’t including sex at all have some extremely queer narratives, and when they are including sex? Holy fuck. South Korea is developing, but I have liked what I’ve seen so far, and it’s been fun seeing very rapid progressions in the level of physical intimacy characters are allowed to have, Thailand has been making a name for itself.  

TL;DR: There is a very broad range of physical intimacy in Asian BLs from no sex to lots of sex, but the abundance of content means I am seeing more shows with gay sex in them in like…a month or two, than shows I have seen in the West with gay characters at all in like…the past year. (This is of course, subjective, don’t ask me for real numbers). 

And, you know, in case this response wasn’t long enough, the amount of queer content, the types of stories being told, the rapid and continued development of BL is super interesting to observe in its own right. Sure, it may be driven by marketability and sales, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some truly important, realistic, vital, and beautiful pieces of queer media being created and shared with the world, a lot of which is much more accessible to audiences than Western media. I go heavy on the Thai shows in part because they are available for free on YouTube. 

I also think the West seems to think that having gay marriage is the be all, end all of queer inclusivity, and that they do not realize that countries without gay marriage are creating some of the most realistic queer content out there right now. The West has a lot it can learn from Asian BLs, but in my opinion, we’ve got our heads too far up our asses to be following their lead.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Spencer Klavan

Published: Feb 1, 2023

In 2013 the DSM-V, an authoritative diagnostic manual for therapists and clinicians published by the American Psychiatric Association, defined gender dysphoria as “the distress that may accompany the incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s assigned gender,” where “gender” refers not to one’s biology but to “the public (and usually legally recognized) lived role as boy or girl, man or woman.”

The psychologist John Money popularized this way of speaking in the mid-20th century—it is the lasting legacy of his highly disreputable career. The word “gender” draws a stark—some might say Platonic—dividing line between “sex,” meaning one’s biological characteristics as male or female, and “gender,” meaning the ways in which one behaves, feels, and is perceived. The runaway success of the philosopher Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble in 1990 helped sunder these two ideas more starkly among the leftist intellectual class. Butler was wrestling with French poststructuralists like Michel de Foucault and post-Freudian feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, who had famously written that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Pushing Beauvoir’s idea further, Butler suggested that “sex does not cause gender, and gender cannot be understood to reflect or express sex.”

But then, still more radically, Butler proposed that sex too is an invented idea applied to the body, so that even the most basic facts of our physical selves are subject to transformation and reinterpretation: “gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which ‘sexed nature’ or a ‘natural sex’ is produced.” Gender is a performance; binary sex is a social construct; our bodies are objects of hostile interpretations fabricated by the powerful. At the time these were explosive statements. Today, they are practically commonplace.

With this new vocabulary came new awareness of a painful split between body and soul. By all accounts, dysphoria is agony—a jagged perceived mismatch between flesh and spirit. In 2016, Buzzfeed asked gender dysphoric people to depict what it was like to feel as they did. Women drew their breasts as balls and chains shackled to their legs; men imagined unzipping their own skin and emerging, newly female, from their old unwanted exoskeleton. In children with gender dysphoria, puberty can be a time of acute distress when the maleness or femaleness of the body suddenly asserts itself in a dramatic way. The thoughts of gender dysphoric adolescents often turn to suicide, which is why many parents are willing to do anything—including irreversible surgery and hormonal intervention—to help alleviate the discomfort.

But it is telling to read in the DSM-V that gender dysphoria occurs in just 0.005 percent to 0.014 percent of natal males, and 0.002 percent to 0.003 percent of natal females. In 2013, those numbers were current. They are already wildly out of date. Girls, especially, are developing gender dysphoria at an alarming pace: between 2006 and 2016, the number of referrals to London’s Charing Cross “Gender Identity Clinic” nearly quadrupled. Between 2008 and 2015, another such clinic in Nottingham saw its referral numbers jump from 30 to 850. A Gallup report in 2020 found that 1.8 percent of Gen-Z kids in the United States (born between 1997 and 2002) identified as transgender. By 2021, it was up to 2.1 percent. A shocking uptick in gender dysphoria, especially among girls, has blown the DSM-V’s figures out of the water. We are simply more uncomfortable in our bodies than we were before.

Perhaps some of this is because gender dysphoric people are more comfortable sharing their feelings as it becomes commonplace, not to say required, to accept and validate transgender people in American culture and society. But it is just as likely, if not more so, that causation goes the other way: maybe boys and girls feel more uncomfortable about their bodies as they are increasingly taught by adults and peers to view their physical sex as something detachable from their gender. Brown University health researcher Lisa Littman caused enormous controversy when she surveyed 250 families with dysphoric children and observed that 80 percent of the kids were female. What Littman called “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” is a new phenomenon, a sudden self-identification as trans in girls who never showed signs of bodily discomfort before. Littman was attacked because her results suggested that our massive dysphoria epidemic might not be entirely spontaneous.

More and more public schools have adopted the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s “gender snowperson,” or other similar infographics, to teach that sex, sexuality, and gender are unmoored from one another. But this kind of messaging goes beyond classrooms. One 2020 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found evidence that in areas where kids are exposed to more media coverage of transgender-related issues, gender therapy clinics receive more referrals. Kids increasingly shape their political beliefs and values (including their sense of gender identity) in conversation with one another in online forums. “Online engagement is not just isolated,” said Tumblr’s director of outreach Liba Rubenstein, “it really is attached to people’s offline identities.”

Typically, this kind of peer-to-peer discussion is represented as a victory for liberation and inclusion. But online life is not just allowing kids to vent their discomfort with their bodies: it’s also creating that discomfort where previously there was none. In this broader context the rise in transgender identification and gender dysphoria seems less like an authentic phenomenon in and of itself, and more like one symptom of an ancient conflict between body and soul, kicked into hyperdrive by the experience of internet life.

Abigail Shrier, a journalist who documents the rise of gender dysphoria in young girls in her book Irreversible Damage, interviewed one teenager whose anorexia morphed naturally into gender dysphoria as if the two sprang from the same source: “My goal went from diet pills to testosterone…. From fantasies about slicing off my thigh fat to slicing off my breasts. I bound them with duct tape. I couldn’t breathe. It made me panic, but I felt brave.” Buck Angel, a transsexual internet celebrity, speculated to Shrier about the association between widespread gender dysphoria and a disgust at the body more generally among teens, who are having less sex than previous generations and seem more comfortable in virtual than physical space. Shrier concludes that adolescent transgenderism “very often seems to be a sad cult of asexuality, like the hand-painted sign in an antique shop reading ‘Please Do Not Touch.’”

Persona Creata

Given the explosion of gender dysphoria among adolescent girls, this phase of the body crisis suggests a particular horror at the idea of womanhood. “Perhaps forever,” writes Shrier, “but at least since Shakespeare’s Viola arrived shipwrecked in Illyria and decided to pass herself off as a man, it has occurred to young women: it’s so much easier to be a boy.” The feminist injunction for women to “lean in”—to hunt out positions of power and dominance in traditionally male industries and pursuits—comes freighted with the implication that traditionally female pursuits are weak, contemptible, and dull. “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession,” sniffed Hillary Clinton, in a classic summation of this idea, during her husband Bill’s first presidential campaign.

Both implicitly and explicitly, our ruling classes express contempt for homemaking and motherhood. But this closes off the most primal path to resolving the body crisis. Women, by creating new life, bear witness to the possibility that body and soul can in fact be reconciled: in childbirth, human flesh becomes the medium of the divine. Poets have expressed this as the “eternal feminine,” the strangely luminous power of women like Dante’s Beatrice or Faust’s Margarete to act as physical conduits for the life-giving power of God. “Woman, eternal, beckons us on,” wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the closing lines of his Faust. This is the meaning of the Virgin Mary’s consent to bring God into the world: her body will become the medium to deliver divine life, God made flesh.

Not that pregnancy and labor are some sort of cakewalk that we should regard with misty-eyed sentiment. Ever since Adam and Eve left Eden, creating life has also meant facing pain. The delicate challenge of growing from girl to woman involves coming to terms with the blood and the sorrow of what it means to have a body in a fallen world. Now, though, that hard task is made harder by the constant social implication that to be a mother is to be brainwashed and oppressed. Small wonder girls are fleeing womanhood, and small wonder this has intensified our sense that the human body is nothing more than a dead weight. Childbirth is not the only way to be fulfilled, nor the only way out of the body crisis. But if our bodies are not at least potentially a source of life as well as death, of blessing as well as discomfort, then they are simply a burden. Shucking off that burden means turning women into mere body parts that can be removed, reconfigured, or appropriated at will, reducing the female body to its functions and recasting women themselves as “menstruaters,” “chest feeders,” and “birthing people.”

Thus trans activism increasingly comes along with the implication that the body has no inherent integrity; that its meaning is entirely at the whim of its inhabitant. “Here’s the thing about chest surgery,” said Dr. Joanna Olson-Kennedy, a trans youth specialist and director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles: “If you want breasts at a later point in your life you can go and get them.” Reacting with alarm to Olson-Kennedy’s statement, British journalist Douglas Murray asked: “Are people like blocks of Lego onto which new pieces can be stuck, taken off and replaced again at will?”

Not yet, but perhaps that is the longing upon which trans extremism plays. Increasingly the objective is to abolish the boundaries of the body altogether, to liberate the human spirit and let it mold the flesh as it chooses. This is what critic Mary Harrington calls “biolibertarianism”: the aspiration to remove bodily constraints, to turn our physical form into a set of customizable parts that can be interchanged or reshaped. Harrington notes an anonymous 2018 paper, Gender Acceleration, which argues that surgical transition from male to female “breaks [a] lucky few free from the horrid curse of being human.” A woman who goes by the handle “whorecress” expressed a very similar attitude in a video that went viral on TikTok: “I’m not body-positive,” she declared, “I’m not body-neutral. I’m body-negative. I wanna be vapor. Or like, a plume of blue smoke. Or mist. Or a rumor—I’d be a rumor… ’cause like, gender? Humiliating. An ache, a pain? Needing to sit down? Spatial awareness? The vulgarity…. Every day I wake up and I’m subject to the burden of embodiment. How dare I be a shape? Disgusting.”

Obviously this monologue was delivered with a certain irony. But like all successful humor, it articulated a real sentiment that the online audience connected with. Whorecress’s cri de coeur against embodiment featured on a Reddit discussion thread called r/voidpunk, which “is a subculture for those who often feel rejected or disconnected from humanity” and prefer to associate themselves with a more spectral or robotic form of life. r/voidpunk has 21,600 subscribers as of this writing, but the trend is much bigger than that: “transhumanism” is a growing movement among technologists, many of whom imagine a future where gene editing, virtual reality, and bionic enhancement render us free from the limitations of physical existence. This is the modern culmination of our extreme body crisis.

The connection between transgenderism and transhumanism is made explicit by transgender activist and scientist Martine Rothblatt. Rothblatt’s book, From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form, argues expressly that gender transition is just the beginning:

I am convinced that laws classifying people as either male or female, and laws prohibiting people’s freedom based on their genitals, will become as obsolete in the twenty-first century as the religious edicts of the Middle Ages seem absurd in America today…. Over the next few decades we will witness the uploading of human minds into software and computer systems, and the birth of brand new human minds as information technology. As we see our selves and our loved ones in these transhuman beings, and they make us laugh and cry, we will not hesitate long to recognize their humanity with citizenship and their common cause with us in a new common species, Persona creatus (the “created person”).

And so the most cutting-edge current expression of the body crisis is not the hormone injection but the digital avatar: pick and choose how you will move through imagined digital space. The movement that began with “gender neutral” pronouns has now produced an enormous constellation of totally invented identities, going far beyond ze and zer to include neologisms like “pupself” and “demonself,” for those who identify spiritually as animals or demons. What’s going on here is bigger than gender: we are dreaming not simply of making men into women, and vice versa, but making ourselves into anything, at a whim.

Desire and Happiness

“Gender? Humiliating.” Whorecress was on to something. “How dare I be a shape? Disgusting.” There is the body crisis in a nutshell.

And yet we can’t escape the body except at a great and terrible cost. Much like virtual reality and online life, transhumanism holds out glittering promises on which it is singularly ill-equipped to deliver. It’s not just that sex-change technology currently comes with gruesome risks and lifelong complications. Even if we imagine that rearranging or reconstructing body parts becomes painlessly easy, will it make us happy? What will “happy” even mean? Already Andrea Long Chu, a major transgender writer, has emphasized that happiness is not the point: “My new vagina won’t make me happy,” Chu wrote in the New York Times, “and it shouldn’t have to.” This is because “desire and happiness are independent agents.” Really? If our desires have no governing aim, such as happiness or virtue, what is the use of them—or us—at all? Surely we follow our desires because they point us toward something desirable—if not, we are just aimless hunks of flesh pulled randomly in all directions by wants that have no connection to goodness or joy. This total dissolution of purpose would be one of the real wages of transhumanism, were it ever to become reality.

If we become fully free from the constraints of physical form, if we even develop the technology to “feel” whatever we want, then we really will become nothing more than the chemistry sets that the crudest materialists imagine us to be: joy will be an electro-chemical occurrence, unrelated to any objective excellence or achievement. In our effort to liberate our spirits from our bodies, we will make our spirits and our very consciousness into the mere mechanical illusion that machinists already imagine it to be. Dissolve the boundaries of your body and you dissolve the boundaries of yourself. If you feel an instinctive disgust at this dystopian futuristic prospect, it is because you have a felt intuition of what we really are.

We can have compassion for gender dysphoric people without making them the central ideal of all our aspirations. Without a trace of malice toward them, we may observe that the measures they take to transform their bodies are not steps in a direction we find particularly attractive or healthy. Treating the body like an endlessly permeable and cumbersome appendage is just as degrading as ignoring it in favor of constant online entertainment, and for the same reasons. Both are means of seeking escape from our physical forms, and both promise liberation while actually leaving us sick, remorseful, and listless. We have indulged for too long in the vague fantasy that if these kinds of life are pushed to the extreme, they will suddenly become fulfilling—that if we just proceed down this path that is currently making us sick and miserable, we will eventually be happy and free. This, as always, is a dubious proposition.

==

You are not in your body. You do not have a body. You are a body. You are the thing your body does.

Movements that treat the body as a plaything, as malleable clay, result in nothing but disaster.

Ideas around "gender identity" separate from the material biology that produces you - that is, an ethereal "sexed soul" - are as incoherent as the Xian belief that you have an eternal soul that can go to heaven without the brain that produces your personality and emotional state, and stores and accesses your memories. If you believe in biology-independent "gender identity" but laugh at the idea of the Xian soul that will float up to heaven to spend eternity with grandma and grandpa, you're being inconsistent.

[higherground-1]

Gender Identity Crisis in Adolescents

BETHEA_JRN661_Field Assignment 2: Civic/Public Journalism

Gender Identity Crisis in Adolescents

MARYLAND (2024)—In the hearts of many adults, the adolescent memories stemming from choices that affect them today linger. Across this country, teenagers mysteriously wrestle inwardly with the question, “What am I, a boy or a girl? Why do I feel and look this way? What is wrong with me?”

Broken crayons on the floor, angry frustration misdirected in the air, yesterday’s leftovers glued to the plate on the table, and dolls that sit far apart under the bed pillows reveal a confused gender. “There are many ways parents can promote healthy gender development in children,” adds Rafferty. “It helps to understand gender identity and how it forms.” The beginning of this long yet often difficult journey is identified as something called “gender dysphoria.”

My.clevelandclinic.org describes “gender dysphoria” as a sense of unease regarding the mismatch between assigned gender and gender identity. This feeling affects many—but not all transgender people before they begin living as their authentic selves (transition and gender expression).” According to Healthy Children.org’s writer, Jason Rafferty, (2024), “Being a boy or girl, for the most part, for most children, is something that feels very natural. At birth, babies are assigned male or female based on physical characteristics.” This refers to the “sex” or “assigned gender” of the child.”

Trans Children share their stories using the link below.

In transfamilies.org, Odetta, a multi-ethnic mom writer and special needs advocate, is the parent of a trans boy. “When I was raising my son, who was a misassigned female at the time, I didn’t give him a lot of dolls and pink things unless he asked for them.” Many parents find that they can get along better with their children if they try to understand them.

When asked what some of the challenges are she faced were when counseling adolescent children, the anonymous retired social worker of 42 years shared, “The number one thing that I found out when I counseled children was, I could not do enough for a child because I wasn’t available all the time.” “A child has to be able to get ahold of you.”  The social worker then confessed when asked what it was like counseling adolescents who might be uncomfortable with their gender and if they would need extra guidance and advice, “They need you very badly, and when they can’t get you, they act out.”

Many children often commit suicide when confused as to what they should do with their feelings of inadequacy and aloneness. She further alluded to the children not having “the warmth,” love, and comfort from their parents, and the schools are expected to operate in the parental role.

An anonymous Social worker/Counselor shared, “A major part of the process is developing a safe place for that child who is likely feeling alone and confused; allow the child the freedom to put into words what makes them feel uncomfortable, and the parent should make an empathetic effort to understand without judgment.”  

[jimvasta]

Six months on Testosterone

I did an update at five months, here we go again at six months

In case you missed some previous details: I am an older than most ftm medical transitioners. Yep, I left it late mainly because my xennial idiot self had no idea I was trans for a long time - LGBTQ education was illegal when I grew up (Section 28, thanks Thatcher), the internet literally did not exist until I was in secondary school (and was dial up only), and if you get told you’re a tom girl long enough you struggle to figure it out. 

So, I am married, I have children, and a career - I’m your Trans Dad but you youngsters can call me Baba. You can’t tap me for pocket money (my little live in minions have already taken everything), but you can absolutely ask me questions, get moral support (or amoral if required), and if I ever meet you in person I do give great Baba hugs. 

I have been around the block few times and had the usual life disasters here and there. I count myself lucky to have survived this far!

Anyway, six months on T:

Periods are no longer a thing - yay! If I bleed now it’s because I’ve been a dumb arse and injured myself, not because mother nature is being a drama queen.

Hair - So much hair. I was expecting treasure trail and a few hairs on my chest but the extra hairs growing my upper thighs were an eye opener! Fine dark hairs on my upper lip are more fluffy than anything else and I am only shaving to get used to it.

Voice - Oh yes, it’s getting low and the worst of the cracking seems to have gone in the previous month. It may sneak up on me again though, we will have to see.

Strength - Hehe, wrestling matches with the hubby are getting good. I go to the gym and lift weights regularly, I can now match him for strength and he is having to come to terms with me being the bear in this relationship. To be fair, I really don’t think he minds,

Surgery - I see the consult for top surgery in three weeks. Given I have rather large moobs (two children will do that!) it will have to be a double incision and the first quote is £7800. In theory I could wait for the NHS, but I’d like to get surgery before retirement so private funding it is. I will see if I can get an hysterectomy through the NHS, but that’s not such a priority atm. The moobs are a huge dysphoria issue since I feel like they stop me passing and during summer it’s too hot to bind.

Hormones - Obviously, I’m now six months in. I started out on Testogel and it worked but timing when to apply it with gym workouts and an active shift working job was a pain. You can’t shower within hours of applying it which has the potential to make you chose between T levels and feeling icky/sweaty all day. My wonderful specialist laughed at me for making the decision to change just as we got my T levels in the right place and then cheerfully stabbed me in the backside with Nebido. In three months time I will go back for another round. A week later and I am already liking not having to do anything and knowing my T is there.

Random - My body temperature has gone up, I don’t feel the cold so much and I struggle stupidly in the heat. Libido, oh boy, that is crazy and hubby is loving it!  My face shape is changing and fat distribution is giving me a belly and my hips are less obvious, while my shoulders are broadening.

Overall - Passing is hit and miss, hubby informed me I am in the uncanny valley stage of transition. 

My workmates and I are running an experiment with the people we meet on a daily basis. I think it’s mostly women who code me as female and men who code me as male. They think it’s age based and the older a person is the more likely they are to see me as female. Results when we have a large enough study.

Remember, you do you. All my fabulous fellow cryptids, you know you’re beautiful. If you’re younger than me beware, I will adopt you if your biological family are being shitty.

[betterlucknexttime]

Okay but consider this: AFTG but EVERYONE IS TRANS p.1

Neil Josten

They're agender. AFAB. Previously Nathalia Wesninski. They/them.

It took them a while to figure out that there was a WORD for it.

When they were on the run Mary would take every single measure possible to keep her "daughter" safe, and if that meant masquerading them as something other than a girl? So be it.

Neil never felt different, whether he was pretending to be a boy or a girl. It always felt weird being either. They didn't feel any particular connection to either gender, and thought it was just that they were very invested in playing the part.

When they join the foxes and hear the others talking about transgender people (specifically nonbinary people) something clicks. They don't want to draw attention to themselves so they research it on their own and find the term "agender" and it PERFECT.

Neil Josten was supposed to be a boy and they're already binding- they chose for Neil to be male because binding always felt better to them. It was another reason for all their baggy clothes.

During October of their second year (and the girls' last) they come out. Cue an EXTREMELY enthusiastic group.

Andrew Minyard

Trans man. Previously Olivia Doe. He/him. He used to go by Andy as much as possible, because it was more androgynous.

In foster care, Andrew having female anatomy was used against him so many times. This is NOT the "reason" he's trans, because there is no "reason" for being transgender. You just are, it's not something you can change. This is just another reason his female anatomy felt dirty, to the point where he almost couldn't differentiate between it and his dysphoria.

For a long time he thought that was the only reason. And then when he realised he was transgender, there was always a nagging part of his brain telling him that he wasn't, that he couldn't be, that it was just his trauma.

When he met Aaron and found out that Aaron was trans too, he realised that maybe he was really trans. Maybe it wasn't just another way Dr*ke and the others had broken him.

He's completely awful with binders. He just keeps them on all the time. He would sleep in them if Aaron didn't wrestle him out of it every night.

When he buys the car with his mom's life insurance money, he makes sure to save enough to cover part of the cost of top surgery and testosterone.

He won't admit that Nicky is and was an amazing help. But he was. And so was Aaron, in his own way. Aaron knew how he felt, at least as well as anyone ever could, and Nicky was incredibly supportive, almost to the point of making Andrew hate nem.

Kevin Day

Demiboy. AMAB. Always Kevin Day- he never really felt like changing it and anyways, what about the PRESS?! They/them/he/him.

They never really got to think about it in the Nest. For obvious reasons. But Kevin never really felt like he fit in with the other boys.

He was really confused for a while because he wasn't a girl, but being called "young man" and "sir" and "Mr Kevin Day" and even "son of Exy" always felt wrong.

Not much changes once they come out. The foxes are super supportive, Neil is really excited, Allison offers to teach him how to do makeup and paint nails when he asks, and Renee dyes his hair the colours of the flag for pride.

Whenever someone is like "Kevin Day isn't a real man, he's a coward." the foxes are all like "yeah no shit but call him a coward one more time..."

They always felt like they weren't "trans enough" cause demiboy didn't feel that far from man, even though the latter was not Kevin in the least.

But the foxes all assure them they are. And after a while they start to believe it too.

[crossdreamers]

What is the difference between sex and gender?

Very often discussions about what it means to be transgender ends up in a quarrel about the difference between sex and gender. Some argue that there is no difference. Others that you cannot understand human beings without distinguishing between the two.  Here follows a pretty clear explanation.

Some days ago I got the following anonymous tumblr-question:

Hi! I don’t know if you answer this kind of questions, but my friend just came out as trans to his family and I really want to support him, and I feel like I should start by understanding him and the trans community as a whole better, as well as being more familiar with concepts of gender and sex, etc. So I wanted to ask if you have anything I could start with to begin understanding all of this better ?(literally keywords to google can work or books/articles,anything works!) 💜💜

The map versus the world

I think that much of the confusion found in online discussions about sex and gender is that many people think the map is exactly like the world itself. But when you think about a map of Times Square in New York, as this one...

... it is very easy to see that this 2D rendering is nothing like what Times Square looks like, feels like, sounds like and smells like in the real world. 

The map is a very simplified abstraction containing symbols that are there to help us navigate the real Times Square.

The same applies to language, including scientific concepts. The world itself is so insanely complex and “messy” that there is no way simple, human made, words and concepts can capture it all. 

The five dimensions of sex and gender

Originally English had one word, one sign,  to capture the complexity of what it means to be a man or a woman, namely “sex”. That  word was used  to capture at least five very different phenomena:

1. BIOLOGICAL SEX

Ultimately biological sex is  about gametes: sperm and eggs. In biology males are those who  produce sperm and females are those who produce eggs. Sperm meets egg and viola, you have a baby.  This is a fact. We would not be here without them.

Hormones decide whether a fetus ends up as a human being producing eggs or sperm, and most often – but not always – this hormone production correlates with  relevant chromosomes, XY in males and XX in females.

2. SEXUAL CHARACTERISTICS

Hormones also trigger the development of sexual characteristics. The primary sexual characteristics (genitalia) develop early on. The secondary sexual characteristics (facial hair growth, breasts etc.) appear during puberty.

Most often the development of secondary sexual characteristics follows from the biological sex, but there is a lot of variation and no absolute clear boundaries between the two sexes as regards looks.

3. GENDER EXPRESSIONS

While the development of sexual characteristics is triggered by hormones, the development of gender expressions are (for the most part) not. 

Among gender expressions we find clothing (skirts vs. trousers), mannerisms (crossing or not crossing your legs when sitting) and even interests (knitting versus wrestling). 

We know that these gender expressions are cultural and not biological for two important reasons: They differ from culture to culture (Roman men wearing togas and Scotchmen wearing kilts) and from individual to individual. Where I live (in Norway) most men are not afraid to cross their legs when seated, and women do love jeans.

4. GENDER ROLES

Gender roles refers to the way cultures divide tasks between the two genders, informally and even legally. 19th century European and North American had no right to vote. The majority of nurses world wide are women, even today.

Few of these gender roles have a firm biological basis, as the political and cultural changes that took place during the previous century has shown us. 19th century women in “the West” were supposed to be emotional, irrational and inferior to men in most ways. They were therefore not fitted to a life of leadership, the men said. They were, on the other hand, considered more nurturing than men, which made them the obvious choice for child rearing. 

Since then women have proven themselves capable in all strands of life, and many men are very good at taking care of kids.

5. GENDER IDENTITY

Gender identity is your deep felt sense of being a man or a woman (or neither or both). Most people (non-transgender cis people) never reflect on their gender identity, because no one is challenging it. 

Transgender people, on the other hand, as well as some intersex people, are forced to reflect on the difference between biological sex and gender identity, because they strongly, continuously and persistently feel that their sense of being a man or a woman (or some other category) does not match their legally assigned gender. 

People may disagree as to what causes this dissonance between biological sex and gender, but there is no denying that the mismatch exists. 

The sense of being a gendered being is undeniable

Gender dysphoria is real. The sense of being forced to live as the wrong gender is real. This means that the sense of being a gendered person is real. Gender identity is not the same as sex.

Anti-trans activists will often talk about transgender and intersex people being statistical outliers, saying that they do not in any way represent normalcy. There are actually as many intersex people as there are redheads in the world, but let us, for the sake of argument, say that they are right about this. This still does not change the fact that for many people several of these five variables do not match. 

If you have not done so already, you should take a look at the TED Talk of Emily Quinn, an intersex woman with XY chromosomes and “balls”, as she puts it. She looks like a woman, expresses herself as a woman and clearly thinks of herself as a woman. She is real, and through her very existence she provides clear proof of gender identity not being the same as biological sex.

I love the following photo of her, because it makes it so clear that she is using feminine gender expressions to express her real gender, XY chromosomes be damned.

Intersex or transgender

One important difference between intersex people like Emily Quinn and transgender people is that it is relatively easy to track down the biological roots of an intersex condition, being those chromosome variation (XO, XXX, XXY, XYY) or hormonal variation during the development of the fetus.

The transgender gender mismatch might also have roots in genes and hormonal variation (most medical experts seem to think so), but most often it becomes visible as an intense conviction of being “another” gender.

This has led some anti-trans activists to dismiss feelings in general as not being “real”. I remember discussing all of this with one such person, who desperately demanded a clear and unambiguous definition of what it means to be a man and woman, and it had to be based in visible biology. My attempts at telling him that emotions are real too had no effect.

But they are. Emotions are as real as genitals and chromosomes, and if someone continuously and persistently tell us that they are a man or a woman – in spite of all the harassment and social exclusion – you’d better believe there is something real causing that experience.

Mental illness

At this point in gender discussions I have often noticed that those who want to harm transgender people reach for the “mental illness” card. Sure, the feelings might be “real”, they say, but trans people are wrong. 

The map tells these people that Times Square is square. There is no room for circles. So trans people are delusional or perverted. Because science!

The consensus in medical circles is that this is not the case. Trans people are not mentally ill. They are as well equipped to navigate the complexities of life as cis people. They are more likely to be stressed out and depressed, for sure, but that is because they find themselves invalidated and harassed on a regular basis, not because they are mentally ill. 

The American psychiatric manual, the DSM-5, and the international health manual, the ICD-11 are both very clear: Being trans is not a mental illness. 

It is not all about gender expression

Some lesbian trans-exclusionary “radical feminists” (TERFs) try to use their own life experience to explain away the gender variance of trans people. 

Queer culture is full of people who identify as their assigned gender, they argue, but who nevertheless violate the norms of gender stereotypes. There are gay men with feminine gender expressions and lesbian, masculine, butch women.

The argument is that trans people are basically cis people who mistake the desire to express  masculinity and femininity through clothes, mannerism and musical taste for a different gender identity.  When people who used to think of themselves as masculine lesbian women come out as transgender men, they are simply dismissed as deluded women by the TERFs.

They have clearly no idea of how gender dysphoria affects a transgender person’s life. The suffering can be tremendous. You do not think about transitioning on a whim.

And here’s the thing: There is as much variation as regards masculine and feminine expressions and interests among trans people as there is among cis people. 

For sure, great many trans women make use of feminine gender expressions to celebrate their womanhood and get affirmation from those around them. But in this they are no different than cis women, which the flourishing fashion and cosmetic industries can attest to. 

There are butch trans women, in the same way that there are masculine cis women. There are femme trans men, in the same there are feminine cis men.

In other words: Gender expression does not always parallel gender identity.

A postscript on the term biological sex

Some transgender people do not like to talk about “biological sex.” They argue that a transgender woman is and has always been a “biological woman” even if she has not undergone hormone replacement therapy and/or surgery. It is the cultural assignment of a gender after birth that makes the difference, they say.

I understand the argument. They are not wrong.

But keep in mind that biologists use the words “sex” and “gender”, “male” and “female” differently than we do in everyday speech.  To use the map metaphor: Similar symbols can refer to different things.

We need to be able to compare biological sex with experienced gender. It is the only way you can make sense of gender dysphoria and the way many trans people feel alienated from their own bodies. This is why I have used the term “biological sex” throughout this article.

Conclusion

The gender mismatch of transgender people is as real as the sex/gender match of cis people. The very existence of transgender people proves that sex is not the same as gender.

Photo: Alexandr Screaghin

See also this Scientific American article on sex and gender, and my own article: “Sorry, gender cannot be reduced to biological sex.”

[alistairmoonshine]

Witchers Were Never Girls

TITLE: Witchers Were Never Girls

AUTHOR/ARTIST: @alistairmoonshine

PROMPT DAY #: Day #8: Free day

SUMMARY:   Witchers were never girls. Geralt had heard that his whole life, but he wasn't girl. Geralt had just been born with all the wrong body parts. He never thought someone could accept him for him until Jaskier waltzed into his life and paid no mind to what he did or did not have. It was so refreshing for once, Geralt didn't have to answer questions.

WORD COUNT (if applicable): 3817

BOOKS/NETFLIX/2002 SHOW/VIDEO GAME: Netflix

TRIGGERS/WARNINGS: Trans character, penis in vagina sex with said trans character. Mentions of forced transition for the sake of becoming a witcher. 

RATING: E

ADDITIONAL NOTES: @geraskierweek

“Girls don’t become witchers,” That was what Geralt had heard his whole life. Yet, here he was. Well, he wasn’t exactly female, but he had been assigned female at birth. Geralt was raised male most of his life. It was all he had ever known.

He was only a child when Vesemir had scooped him up from his mother. Even during training, no one knew Geralt’s secret; only Vesemir did. Geralt did his best to bind his chest and was never seen naked by anyone. The training was hard, harder so for someone who was assigned female at birth. He had to work extra hard, train extra long, and bulk even more than others to finally get the body he needed.

When it was time for the mutations… Those had been horrendous. Only three out of ten boys actually survive. For some odd reason, Geralt was one of those three. He had handled the mutations so well he was given extra mutations and set upon even stronger potions.

Though, they had some great side effects. With the help from some magic, his breasts had all but disappeared and turned into nice hard pecks. He had grown several inches and bulked out tremendously. The only thing that had been left was… Was the parts between his legs. Granted, some parts of the mutations had caused certain… Areas to grow but he still kept his original set of genitals in tact.

Geralt really had no dysphoria over that part of his body so it had never occurred to him to go find more magic to maybe change it into what “normal” men had between their legs? He just decided to keep that part of him to himself. Even the women he slept with had no idea he wasn’t fully male thanks to some lovely crafted items he kept stowed away.

He had no qualms in pleasuring just about any woman but always refused her to pleasure back. It wasn’t that he didn’t ache for that connection. The want and need on his dick was sometimes real. So real, he would play with himself and stroke himself to completion alone. The orgasms just never seemed to scratch that itch… That itch deep within his body, but he just could not bring himself to share that side of himself to anyone.

Until that damned bard walked into his life. This perky 18 year old boy came waltzing into his life singing about fake mythical creatures and abortions. The man who used a pick up line about bread in his pants. It was almost unbearable. “Come on, don’t wanna keep a man with… bread in his pants waiting,” he had said before he had sat across from Geralt. Geralt had just grunted trying to ignore him.

Though, something perked his interest and the way the bard licked his lips was so delicious… No, no he could not fall for some strange and young bard. He was almost 100 himself! He was just a boy!

And somehow, said boy had gotten Geralt naked and was happily bathing him after the fight with the selkimore. Jaskier had glanced between his legs and Geralt was ready to attack if he made any comments on the folds and smoothness. Yet, Jaskier had not said a word and happily sprinkled bath salts in the tub and sang his praises about helping him at the damned banquet.

At least he hadn’t mentioned Geralt’s lack of a huge cock. Most people automatically assumed the 6 foot 2 man with the broad chest and broad shoulders held something monstrous in his pants. At least, that was the tales in the brothels and Geralt would like to keep it that way; thank you very much.

Yet, Jaskier had said nothing nor told anyone of his plight between his legs. Geralt had for once actually felt a little insecure with what he held down there. That was pretty unusual considering he actually didn’t mind for the most part. It was just easier to not explain to people that yes, girls CAN be witchers but in fact, they end up still becoming men in the end. It was part of the side effects of the mutations.

After that bath, and the banquet, Geralt was a lot more free with undressing and bathing with Jaskier. Jaskier would rake his eyes over Geralt then turn away and not say a word about what he did or did not see. Jaskier would gladly help Geralt bathe and even bathe with him if the tub was large enough or the pond warm enough. Geralt could handle almost freezing temperatures to wash off in but Jaskier was a lot more soft. He was prone to hypothermia. Which ended in them cuddling against one another during the coldest nights when they could not afford or be near an inn.

Jaskier was almost the same height as Geralt, but he was incredibly lithe with just the tiniest of pudges around his stomach. The “noble softness” that it was called. Geralt loved pulling that lithe body against his as Jaskier was spooned. Jaskier fit so perfectly against him and sometimes Geralt would have to stop himself from pulling him even closer to smell the scent of chamomile or Jaskier’s own strong musk.

On nights like those, he was thankful his cock wasn’t big enough to tent his pants and press against his friend’s bottom. Jaskier never made any advancements towards Geralt in any way. He never initiated the cuddling when it was cold, or any of their touches unless they were bathing of course. Then Jaskier was all over him, rubbing his back and even massaging his scalp and untangling the long strands and smoothing it away from his forehead. Geralt actually enjoyed these moments the most.

~ ~ ~

Now, here they were. It was late when Geralt entered the shared bedroom with Jaskier. A young bard maid screamed at the blood covered witcher and even without thinking, grabbed her clothes and ran. His eyes were still black from the potions he drank and he was panting loudly as he dropped the sheath with a loud thunk on the floor.

“Geralt!” Jaskier chastised as he sat up. The bard pulled the sheet over his own naked body as he swung his legs to the floor and planted them on it. “I was having a lot of fun!” He pouted a bit as Geralt growled, showing teeth. He was still high on the potions, “oh, oh don’t give me that!” Jaskier snapped as he stood.

Geralt being like this had never bothered or scared the bard. Maybe that was why Geralt had kept the bard around for so long? Jaskier tsked as he started to help remove the blood soaked armor. Geralt still growled and huffed but did not fight the ministrations of his friend.

“Stop your boorish growling. You need a bath. I am guessing drowner guts?” He made a face as he pulled strands of viscera from his hair. “Yes most definitely a bath!”

“Jaskier…” Geralt warned as those fingers worked on his scalp. A large hand came and clasped around Jaskier’s wrist and Jaskier stopped, dropping a few pieces of entrails to the floor. Geralt put his nose against his friend’s wrist and snuffled lightly as he moaned in the scent of chamomile, Jaskier’s own scents, and the scent of arousal and sex from the bard.

“G-geralt…” He murmured back and cleared his throat as he tried to pull away. Geralt did not allow that to happen as he started to lap and suck on the inside of his wrist with a quiet moan. “C-come on lets get you undressed. You need a bath… Ah!” He cried out and his cock twitched when he felt the witcher bite down. He did not draw blood but it left a small purple mark. Geralt grunted and dropped the wrist lightly. Geralt seemed to relax again as Jaskier finished removing the armer.

Geralt helped as he slowly undid his own belts and buckles letting them fall with a clang. Next, he kicked off heavy, black boots and they went flying across the room with a thump against the wall. Jaskier helped undo his pants and pressed on them to get them to go down. Geralt allowed this but soon moved to help and his pants and underpants also made it to the ground.

Jaskier cleared his throat again as his eyes glanced over the now naked form of the witcher. Geralt stood, bare without moving as he let Jaskier stare. “Ah, yes bath.” The man finally broke his gaze free and went for the tub. It had a pump built in thanks to being a much nicer inn and he started to pump the water quickly. It came out in splurts of steam and he hummed as he filled the water with floral scented bath salts.

How could one man be so flowery? Geralt had yet to know but he wouldn’t complain. He actually liked it. Geralt closed the distance between them and bent down to pull Jaskier up. Jaskier came willingly. Geralt could sense he was stiff, but there was no sour smell of fear. No, only the sweetness of arousal mixed with flowery balt salts and chamomile. “You aren’t afraid…” Geralt said calmly and Jaskier shook his head,

“I have no reason to be afraid of you,” Jaskier replied as his gentle hands came to rest on his friend’s arms. “You have never given me a reason to be afraid…”

“I bit you..” He murmured ever so gently and bared his teeth again. “I could kill you if I wanted especially right now. No weapons. Just bare hands…” He snarled gently and Jaskier tensed, adam’s apple bobbing along with his cock.

“Yes, you could.” Jaskier replied gently, “but you won’t. Now, if you don’t get in this bath I will have to wrestle you and we all know I am not that strong. So, in!” He pushed at Geralt until the larger man slowly entered the tub and sat down as he groaned from the warm water. It was almost heaven on aching muscles and sore limbs.

Jaskier sat to work and grabbed a bucket to start to pour warm water over his hair. Geralt grunted in between the motions but said nothing as Jaskier started a lather. He smelt lavender this time and closed his eyes as Jaskier hummed a song. “Come on, wash your own body you big brute,” Jaskier encouraged and Geralt growled but grabbed the cloth that was offered to him and started to wash the blood off his neck and face.

Jaskier’s fingers felt like heaven buried deep into his scalp as he massaged and worked until he felt all the viscera and blood slowly ebb away. Jaskier poured more water over his head to rinse and repeated the process until the water ran clear of blood. “There, nice and clean! Oh, your eyes are going back to normal…” Jaskier mentioned quietly when Geralt looked up at him with gold eyes,

“Yes, that is what happens when the potions wear off,” Geralt grumbled faintly as he leaned back and sighed. Jaskier just smiled gently and slowly stroked his friend’s shoulder. “How can you not be scared of me?” Geralt asked again lightly. “All I smell is… is your arousal. It’s so sweet it makes me ache,” he admitted and Jaskier fllushed lightly,

“Well you did catch me in the act of having a nice romp with a beautiful young bar maid…” He said softly, “but you really are a dense man.” He said softly. “I have always been attracted to you. I know you have always felt my eyes on you when we bathe. Yet, you have never brought it up or mentioned it. Can you not feel or smell my arousal when you spoon me on bitter winter nights? How I have touched myself in my bedroll next to you?” Geralt grunted softly,

“Oh, I have… I just thought you were thinking of others. I thought the reason you looked at me was curiousness you know because…” He pointed to between his legs and Jaskier snorted,

“I don’t care what is between your legs, Geralt. I care about you as a person,” Jaskier admitted softly, “though the tales of the brothels is that the witcher is hung like a horse!” He almost giggled softly and Geralt rolled his eyes,

“I wanted people to believe that. It is easier than explaining that not all witchers were born male,” he said calmly, “because witchers are never girls.” He made a face and turned away.

“Hey… Whatever your gender is or lack of or whatever… You are who you are,” Jaskier soothed and pulled Geralt’s chin so they were looking eye to eye. “I care about you. Not your gender, not what is between your legs, but you…” Geralt gave a faint smile and surged up. Their lips meshed and Jaskier moaned softly as he returned the kiss with just as much vigor and want.

They kissed for several minutes before Geralt pulled away and nodded to the bed. Jaskier nodded as well and was the first to make it to the bed. Though, Geralt easily closed the distance and toppled them both down onto the bed as he started to kiss Jaskier happily. Jaskier groaned and ground up, his hard cock touching and rubbing against Geralt.

Geralt gasped and threw his head back lightly. He was hard and swollen but his lips were incredibly wet and demanding. Geralt hadn’t really ever played with below his cock. It had never occurred to him that he could. Now, he just wanted to feel Jaskier play with him below. “Jaskier… Please.” he almost begged and Jaskier raised an eyebrow,

“Is that begging? Do witchers beg for sex?” He teased and was able to easily roll them. Of course, Geralt allowed the smaller male to roll them so he was now on top. He shifted his hips and started to grind low and slow. A small bead of precum smearing between them as Geralt ground back and whimpered at the friction of Jaskier’s normal sized cock against his own small dick.

“W-witchers don’t beg…” Geralt growled out but his head fell back and his hips bucked at the sensations as he moaned again.

“Oh-ho but I think they do,” he breathed softly and kissed Geralt gently on the lips. “If anything I do bothers you, please stop me alright?” Jaskier murmured and Geralt gave his consent as Jaskier quickly moved down his body.

He spent little time nibbling and sucking nipples before he traveled down the well furred body. His tongue dipped in and out of a clean belly button and he grinned at the way the strong muscles tensed and relaxed under his tongue.

Soon, he was settled on his knees in front of the witcher’s crotch. He leaned forward and sniffed lightly and moaned at the heady scent of arousal and slick from his friend’s crotch. “Oh, you smell divine… I bet you taste just as good,” he murmured and Geralt just moaned softly as his legs opened to better accommodate Jaskier between them.

The bard shuffled between strong thighs and gave light kisses to said thighs. Geralt tensed but soon relaxed as he felt soothing rubs on his hips. Geralt almost cried out when he felt the first tentative licks upon his small shaft. His cock twitched and he groaned as Jaskier moaned softly, “you taste amazing…” He murmured before he took all of Geralt into his mouth and started to suck gently. Geralt fisted brown mousey hair and held him close.

Jaskier was able to take his small size all the way within his mouth and he happily licked and sucked as his nose rubbed against Geralt’s pelvic area. Geralt ground up and moaned as he bucked. Jaskier was sucking him with vengeance and Geralt knew it would not be long before he was cumming. He had yet to let anyone touch him like this so it was all new sensations.

Jaskier felt the way Geralt shifted and was whimpering as he neared his release and refused to let up until he felt Geralt stiffen and he moaned loudly as he bucked twice and came. Jaskier groaned at smelling and sensing the other leaking so much between his legs. Jaskier pulled back; lips red and spittle sliding from his chin to Geralt’s small and twitching cock.

Geralt looked down at how debauched his friend looked and moaned gently as he pulled Jaskier up and into another kiss. “Jaskier…” Geralt slowly said as Jaskier pulled away,

“Hmm?” He asked softly and Geralt flushed,

“I have never let anyone touch me so… intimately.” He admitted and Jaskier turned red,

“I am glad you allowed me to, my dear witcher. I quite enjoyed sucking your cock,” he grinned a bit and Geralt gulped a bit and sat up,

“I want you to penetrate me.” He said and Jaskier gasped and sat up fully,

“Pe-penetrate you? Like… there?” He pointed and Geralt nodded,

“I haven’t even touched myself there. But I want you to. Will you?” Jaskier nodded and they shifted so both men were fully onto the bed.

“I will be gentle. Please, you have to talk to me and tell me to stop if I hurt you.” Jaskier replied and Geralt hummed lightly and opened his thighs more. The man settled between them and slowly let his fingers trace circles until they met his friend’s labia. He pressed one finger forward and felt Geralt buck as the finger slipped in oh so easily.

He rested and waited for Geralt to relax and slowly started to massage and move it around. Geralt’s brow was furrowed and he was grunting softly, but he did not tell Jaskier to stop. So, Jaskier pressed in a second finger and Geralt’s face relaxed slightly and his jaw went slack as he moaned out loud for Jaskier. Jaskier moaned along with him,

“Oh Geralt, you are so wet,” Jaskier breathed. “I can’t wait to feel you around my cock so wanting… Ohh you are clenching so beautifully,” Jaskier praised and Geralt felt himself really getting off on the praises as he moaned and clenched around the two fingers, “I wonder can you take three hmmm?” At that, a third finger entered Geralt’s hole and Geralt cried out happily as he bucked against the feeling of being full.

Jaskier figured he tortured his friend enough and slipped his fingers out. Geralt keened at the feeling of being left empty, “shh now my dear friend. I promise to show you exactly what it is like…” He said softly as he slowly grasped himself in his hand. He rubbed against the folds gently and then slowly pressed forward and gasped as his head slipped in oh so easily.

Geralt tensed and his face looked like a mix of fear, and concentration. “Geralt? Geralt speak to me.” Jaskier had not slid any further than the head as he waited for the other to allow more. Geralt nodded,

“I...I’m alright. I was expecting more pain but I am only feeling pleasure. Continue please?” Jaskier hummed and nodded as he slowly pressed closer in and buried himself deep within Geralt’s cavern. Jaskier had to hold back just a bit because he felt as if he could spend just from entering his friend. So, he waited until he felt Geralt relax more and slowly started a swift pace.

It wasn’t hard just the thrusts were quick and shallow. Every thrust in, Geralt groaned or cried out. Jaskier was surprised how vocal the witcher could be and it allowed himself to be just as loud. His own moans encouraging the ones from Geralt’s lips.

Jaskier leaned forward and his lips locked with Geralt. Strong hands encased him so they were lying chest to chest; stomach to stomach. Jaskier kept the fast and shallow thrusts as they shared a loving kiss. Soon, the witcher pulled away. His pupils were blown and there was almost no gold left, “more, harder.” He panted and Jaskier groaned as he sat back up on his knees. He slowed to a stop so he could adjust and quickly grabbed his friend’s legs about the knees.

He adjusted his friend’s hips and was holding tightly to the legs and bent Geralt forward just slightly. Geralt moaned softly at the deeper position and Jaskier jack hammered his hips roughly. Geralt felt his larger body slide against the bed and he cried out at the sharp thrusts. Jaskier really was giving it all he could. He was thrusting long and hard and moaning as he deepened the thrusts. Geralt took it all quite happily as he thrust back and kept making obscene moans.

The loud sounds of slick sex, and skin to skin smacks rung between their cries of pleasure. Geralt couldn’t handle this almost. He pressed a hand between their bodies and started to stroke himself roughly in time with the thrusts his friend was giving him.

It didn’t take long before Geralt was crying his release. Though, this time liquid squirted out of him and he cried out as he felt as if he had peed all over himself and Jaskier. Jaskier seemed to enjoy it and moaned ,”oh, oh yes look at that!” He cried and panted, “you just came all over me, Geralt. Beautiful oh, oh I’m close. Where at? Where can I cum?” He asked between pants.

“In me, cum in me!” Geralt panted and that was all it took. Two more thrusts and Geralt felt the first spurts of an orgasm deep within his body. Jaskier moaned as his hips slowed and he rocked his way through his orgasm as Geralt still stroked his stiff little cock. Geralt moaned too at being slightly over sensitive and worked now. Once Jaskier was finished, he pulled off and plopped upon the bed. Geralt groaned and rolled over to pull Jaskier to his chest,

“We need another bath…” Jaskier murmured and laughed softly,

“I..I’m sorry for uh getting all over you.” Geralt said gently a little shy now, “that has never happened before…”

“Geralt, you didn’t pee if that is what you think. You literally ejaculated. I have only experienced that once before with a very willing milk maid. I won’t go into details but people with ah… vaginas can have ejaculations just like men.” He said softly, “and I quite enjoyed feeling you spend over me. It was quite sexy. I hope to make you do it again. If, I have proven myself a worthy bed partner?” Geralt snorted softly as he pressed his nose deep within his hair.

“Mm, you have proven yourself far more…” Jaskier just smiled as he let his eyes slide closed. Maybe a short nap before another bath?

[truethingsiwishicouldsay]

What is your opinion on trans people? Like, the trans people who have transitioned and such?

OK, well, here are my thoughts, which are pretty nuanced so this gets long. I have bolded the main points to help break up the textwall.

First, the surgery thing. Whether or not a trans person has had gender reassignment surgery does not change my basic perception of them as a human being. They do not “qualify into womanhood or manhood” by getting surgery. They are not more or less valid as people because they treat their dysphoria with surgery or treat it in some other way. That’s an individual choice that should between them, their doctors and their loved ones. 

It may change their bodies to inspire people at large to treat them according to their gender identities, which in turn helps their dysphoria. But I honestly feel like the FIRST goal of all people who are considering surgery that drastic shouldn’t be surgery to get others to accept your womanhood or manhood so you can accept yourself. It should be radical self-acceptance. You cannot afford to define yourself by others’ perception of you. There are just too many shitty people in the world.

If you can get to the place where you can truly say, “other people’s issues with me don’t define me” and have a basic foundation of self-respect to stand on, you’re in a better headspace to contemplate things like whole-body surgery, or deal with the side effects of a lifelong hormone regimen.

Now for the rest of my thoughts.

Unless they’ve done something awful, like Yaniv, I don’t come for individual trans people. Anyone who does that is a huge asshole and an actual transphobe. If I have a problem with a trans person it is 100% with something they did or with their politics, not their transness.

I am highly critical of modern transactivism and the way it eats away at the rights and boundaries of others, tries to politicize sexual entitlement, fucks with the definition of words, seems to specifically target cis women with demands, boundary violations and antagonism, is homophobic in its demands for sexual “access” to same-sex-attracted people, and encourages behavior such as nailing dead rats to rape recovery center doors, threatening people, and in my sister’s and my case, beating them.

Yeah, I got my ribs cracked by a trans woman tree times my size on the RUMOR that my sister was a TERF. A rumor spread vindictively by a drunk because she wouldn’t cheat on THE AWESOMEST WIFE IN THE UNIVERSE with her. I fucking HATE the TERF patrol. They silence and harm women. But that doesn’t give me the right to hate trans people.

Trans people are human beings who should be able to live their lives without abuse. That includes everything from idiots marching into their journals and bullying them and their partners on up to the Hell trans POC face in places like Brazil. 

There is a difference between biologically-based sex and socially defined gender. “Trans women are women” doesn’t mean trans women are biologically female. Otherwise they would not be trans. 

You can’t deny biological reality to cater to your dysphoria without putting yourself at risk healthwise, and without ending up at odds with pretty much everyone. I will call my trans brothers “dude” and laugh at their dropped-my-packer-in-the-bathroom stories and acknowledge their gender as male, but I’m still going to feel like I should say something if they’re having PCOS symptoms or something and won’t go to a doctor because dysphoria. Your body may not fit your soul, but it doesn’t deserve neglect.

Because gender is socially defined and often toxic, it’s up for grabs. Defy it, redefine it, jump gender boxes, set up new ones, whatever--do you. 

Just don’t scream at people with no experience of it who don’t quite get it at first. I have no fucking idea what gender box you’re sitting in if you give no outward signs at all, so don’t yell at my scramblebrained self for not being psychic. 

I try not to misgender people because I don’t like hurting people who aren’t even part of the conversation. That does not mean I don’t believe there’s no difference between the life experiences of transgender people and (what’s most commonly called) cis people. Of course there is.

Sex criminals who reinvent themselves as trans women to try and get into female prisons are absolutely fucking suspect. 

If you want to change your body to match your sense of gender, that’s your business--so long as you pay real attention to the medical implications. I hear about trans guys hurting themselves with binders and my response is 100% like “Ow, oo honey, please be careful” and 0% like “look at this crazy person blahblahblah here’s some transphobia”

Puberty blockers and transing kids horrify me, in part because I know a kid going through it and he’s already suffering massive side effects. He’s. Nine.

I get pissed off when historical female heroes get transed. Let us have our heroes. Don’t try to redefine every brave, gender-defying woman as a man.

I am wary of self-ident because of the ways it is being abused. 

Dysphoria sounds like absolute Hell. Personally I’m not sure surgery and such is the answer, but it’s not something I have ever dealt with. I certainly don’t think people should be pressured into surgery and hormones as “the answer” or “the only answer”.

Cotton ceiling activists are fighting for the sexual coercion of women and are loathsome. Nobody owes anybody sex, and thinking otherwise is a sign of toxic male socialization, full stop.

Many of the problems such as bathroom bills could be more easily addressed through physical innovation rather than political arguing. What we need is better design of public lavatories to provide everyone with both truly private and accessible public space. This would include everything from protecting from predators and privacy-invaders, to making sure everyone can pee without having a damn sex/gender debate at the door.

Biological males do not belong on girls’ high school or college sports teams, or in women’s competitive sports. Growing up male gave them physical advantages whether they acknowledge it or not. Also if a man in his fifties is on a high school or college women’s sports team because he “feels like a teenage girl” and you don’t think that’s suspect...

Girlhood and sexism are experienced by cis women and non-passing trans men. Boyhood and male privilege are experienced by cis men and non-passing trans women. People treat you according to the sex they perceive you to be, not the gender you perceive yourself to be. How people perceive and treat you determines your socialization and experience of sexism and privilege, not how you identify.

Screaming transphobia because a conversation about biological female health “doesn’t include trans women” is simply irrational. If you don’t have the plumbing or deal with the issues, the conversation doesn’t apply to you. Derailing conversations about female biology to nitpick about the words used is also a silencing tactic.  On the other hand, I will gladly bitch about periods with trans guys and acknowledge that when it happens they’re probably wrestling with an additional burden of heavily triggered dysphoria.

Female erasure is real. The tendency of transactivists to demand that words like “front hole” and “uterus holders” be used on us to spare their feelings COMPLETELY IGNORES WHAT BEING REFERRED TO LIKE THAT DOES TO US. Half the human population should not face dehumanizing language and treatment so that a small percentage of the population can feel a little better.

Feminists have also noticed that 99.9% of the time, it’s women who are expected to give ground, change our language, and change our behavior to accommodate. Men don’t face the same expectations. They are not confronted online, their organizations are not attacked, their buildings are not defaced. Transactivists have a huge sexism problem.

It is absolutely possible to be of the female gender and yet rampantly, blatantly and deeply discriminate against members of the female sex. Any wariness I have of trans women largely stems from negative experiences of trans female sexism and assault against trans men and cis women. 

Sexism, sexual entitlement, out of control tantrum-throwing, taking pleasure in threats and use of violence, demanding to be at the center of every movement you are in (whether transgender or feminist, for example), and the demand that biologically female people cater to you are all signs of toxic male socialization. I used to rather arrogantly say that trans women should jettison these as part of their transition, but the truth is that every human being should. But it’s still causing problems.

TLDR: it really depends on the specific trans issue and how it intersects with Feminism, social pressures, self-image, and scientific fact. Transactivism has huge problems, but trans people are human beings who deserve basic consideration and respect regardless.

[heartoftherium]

PSA

For a while now, I have wrestled how best to address something concerning a major change in my life. To most of you, this will come as a shock. It is not my intent. If it doesn’t, well you might know me better than I know myself. However, there really is no other way to express what I’m dealt with, why I sought help, and what has taken place in doing so. It has taken many rewrites, and, though, knowing what I’m about to share, will be controversial for some and difficult for others to digest, and for others a simple acceptance and change of behavior toward me.

I felt it was needed in order to close out this chapter in my life, though in reality, in a way it is the beginning. To ease concern and worry, I am not ill, nor dying. This is purely a simple down to the point best I can to express something that has been weighing on me for some time now. They say, never judge a book by its cover. Well, in my case, you were just seeing the cover and not what’s inside. No one knew the internal struggle, or the confusion and pain I have lived with most of my life, including my own family. Deep inside, I was hurting and lost but could not tell anyone out of fear of many things.

In short, my brain does not; has not; nor ever will; identify with my anatomical sex assigned at birth. To put it simply, I’m not a female and have never truly felt as such. I am transgender, and I am a boy. They say the hardest step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one. I had one, but I couldn’t face it. Time and time again, throughout my life I tried to ignore from it, but it wasn’t going away. Since early childhood, I tried to mirror my behavior like that of my female role models, thinking my actions would ultimately program my thinking. It was a false assumption, but for a child, I knew no better.

This carried over into adult life as well, thinking if I just overcome the next hurdle; sooner or later, my brain would be normal. I hoped it away, suppressed it, and tried my best to accept it. My brain could not relate to females, yet I kept going through the motions, playing a role so that I could be accepted. Over time, it has taken a toll on me to the point I was beginning to check out on life.

I spent a considerable amount of time studying “Gender Dysphoria,” seeking answers to what I was living with. Psychologists, therapist and other experts in these fields gave me insight as to why I was suffering. I now know who I am, and am actively changing to express how I have felt inwardly to match that of what I show on my cover or this book that makes up who I am.

It means that I will be undergoing a long and tedious process to shift every bit of Identification related to me to reflect my male identity, which will, of course, include a change of name. The name I have chosen to be known as from now on is Gavin Cole Carmen and would like to be called that from now on. For those of you wondering, yes, you may still call me Jarvis. In fact, that name has become a title of sorts and I have decided it will become my stage name of sorts to use for Cosplay and other things.

This is the part where I want to make clear that this is not a choice. I am not deciding to become a boy. This is who I am allowing myself to be who I am, and it is the only route that I can take, because I am done feeling this way about who I am, and I want to be comfortable in my own skin.

To you, my friends and family who are reading the news for the first time, I am sorry if this has hurt you in any way. It was never my intent although my heart and desire is to remain your friend; I recognize to some this may not be the case. I am okay with that. I can’t ask for acceptance from everyone. I don’t even really expect it. I just want everyone to know. However, I want you to know, you will always have a special place in my heart and I will treasure the memories.

For the near future, know that my transition is underway right now. Things will be changing about myself, my mannerisms, my voice, my looks – but keep in mind that beneath it all I’m still the same person. Same likes, same dislikes, same jokes, same taste. I know it’s going to be strange, I know it’s going to be different, and I know most of you have never had to go through this before. It’s okay I haven’t either.

I know there will be awkward situations. I know I’ll be accidentally called Chauntel and referred to as a female, and I know it will feel weird having to correct yourself when it comes to these things. I expect it, and I’m fine with it. I also expect questions, lots and lots of questions, and I want them to be asked without fear. I’m an understanding person, and I understand how weird this might be for some of you, and I want to minimize that as much as I can—for everyone’s sake.

I’m writing this to all of my family, friends, and acquaintances new and old, but it is the people that I’ve known the longest that this will probably affect the most. People who I’ve known since freshman year of high school, or even before, who have seen me grow as a person and see me change many times in many different ways, but never this much.

I do feel like I should say sorry to you for keeping this a secret for so long, for building up a wall between us that I led you to believe didn’t exist. I’m not sorry for who I am, yet I am sorry for who I made you believe I was because that was only a fraction of who I truly am inside and always have been.

Again, all I can do is ask for your understanding—but if I don’t receive it, I’ll probably live. Since coming to terms with all of this, I’m already a happier person. I am taking my short life into my own hands, and I’m going to live it the way that I deserve to live it. I refuse to go on acting as I’ve felt the world would like me to.

This is my story, and I’m going to take the pen write myself the way I want to be, because, in the end, that is truly what makes me, me.

[leiflikesdisney-blog]

How Disney’s Cartoons Are Changing the Game

The cartoon game, to be specific.

Disney is widely known for their animated feature films, and particularly for their princess movies. These movies are seen by thousands of children and adults alike. Disney’s films can greatly influence children, including how they think, dress, talk, and interact with one another, but it is common for children to see a movie in the theater once or twice, and move on to another popular media. While children may see a specific Disney film less than a handful of times, they are far more exposed to and influenced by the cartoons that they watch everyday. While I was growing up, this meant watching Kim Possible, Lilo & Stitch, and American Dragon: Jake Long. While these shows promoted racial and neurological diversity (to an extent), I never saw my LGBT identity represented in animation. Recently, though, Disney has been working toward stepping out of its comfort zone–both in its style of animation and storytelling, and in representation. Disney’s modern cartoons, including Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Gravity Falls, and Wander Over Yonder, are breaking the mold that years of Disney animation have set before them. For this essay, though, I will be focusing on Star vs. the Forces of Evil and its representation of women and LGBT characters.

“Star vs. the Forces of Evil”

“Star vs. the Forces of Evil” is a currently-running Disney Channel cartoon, which is my personal favorite of the recent generation of Disney cartoons. The show follows Star Butterly, a princess from another dimension who has been banished to Earth to practice her magical abilities, and her friends.

The show covers topics, including friendship, rebellion, living up to your family name, jealousy, and many other heavy topics that are not often covered in other cartoons.

Star vs. the Forces of LGBT Representation

In one scene, when the main cast is at a concert for the fictional band Love Sentence, the camera pans along the audience, and it is possible to see many same-sex relationships, as seen in the pictures below.

While the show does not have any canonically LGBT characters, it has mentioned that Star’s best friend, Marco, struggles with body dysphoria, and in multiple episodes, he is shown to have a princess persona that he acts as occasionally. Surprisingly, the show manages to handle this topic very maturely, as you can see in the clip below.

In this clip, the audience can tell that Marco is entirely comfortable presenting as a girl, and he refers to himself with feminine titles and pronouns very naturally. Also, while it is quiet, at 1:58, it is possible to hear Marco say, “Can I stay in this dress?” This furthers the point that Marco is comfortable presenting as a girl, and possibly prefers to present that way. As you can see, Marco also uses the popularity of his princess persona to encourage rebellion against oppressors, and following one’s individuality. 

For these reasons, Marco has stood out significantly to LGBTQ+ viewers of “Star vs. the Forces of Evil.” In fact, many people have interpreted Marco’s body dysphoria, desire to wear a dress, and comfort using feminine pronouns as being a nod to the fact that, later in the show, Marco may come out and become Disney’s first open trans character. This theory has become increasingly popular, with fans even creating a collection of clips (below) that they believe hint at transgender identities, and, more specifically, Marco being trans.

There is also a very concise post explaining the theory behind Marco possibly being trans.

While Marco being trans is entirely theory, he still shines through as positive representation for people who do not often fit society’s rigid gender roles. It is not often that a heroic male character is allowed to wear a dress or ballet shoes without being belittled by friends or being the butt of an uncomfortable joke. Many of the show’s fans have expressed their gratitude, both for the theory and for the blatant representation discussed above.

Unfortunately, much of LGBT representation can only be found in adult media, which focuses heavily on sex and/or death, and children are left to grow up without seeing that aspect of their identity on television. In fact, a personal account by a transgender woman shows just how important representation can be.

This article expresses that representation has been a great influence on Davies’ identity and transition. 

“’I was 60 when it all came pouring out to my wife, she was very sympathetic and helped me all the way, but we agreed to keep it quiet,’ said Davies, who first learned about transgender identity from a TV show sometime in the 1970s.”

And later, the article goes on to say...

“Patricia was inspired to make the big change from male to female after seeing the romantic comedy film Boy Meets Girl, which features transgender characters.”

This is a sentiment shared by many trans people, who grow up knowing that they are different, but not having the words to describe it, and without being able to see a similar experience represented in their peers or on television, spend a great amount of time confused and wrestling with their identity. I recall Glee being the first piece of media I watched with a blatantly open gay character, but, because it is targeted towards toward specifically older teenagers, even that would be inappropriate to show your average child.

A Princess Song: Star vs. the Forces of Evil’s Use of Music in Storytelling and Female Representation

Disney’s princess films often use music as an aspect of story telling, and while Star vs. the Forces of Evil follows this tradition, it also diverts from the stereotypical Disney soundtrack. Many of the show’s songs sound like they either came off the radio or out of a rock opera, and it takes advantage of the moods these songs set in order to further their story and express the experiences and emotions of the characters. Many of these songs often come at the height of action and/or conflict, as another way to express intense emotions that might be more difficult to express naturally through speech. However, one of the most iconic example of use of song in Star vs. the Forces of Evil is during the episode “Face the Music,” when Star is forced to help write a Princess Song for herself for her Song Day Celebration.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil briefly mocks how women are often represented in media through Queen Moon’s “Princess Song.” The song expresses that women are often written without conflict or development, and many female characters (particularly princess) are idealized caricature version of what women are actually like.

Star points out, “That song didn’t say anything about the real you! You could plug any name into that song, and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference.” This quote points out precisely what is wrong with many female characters in the media. While male characters may be allowed conflict and interesting development and traits, female character traits often include things like, “her hair is silky soft,” “her favorite color’s pink,” and “[she] smells like lavender.” This perfectly mimics how female character’s are often one-dimensional, in comparison to the complex male characters that appear in the same piece of media.

Star clearly expresses her distaste over this type of song and characterization, as she feels it is basically nondescript and doesn’t fit her. Star feels guilty writing a “puff piece” about herself, when she knows that she isn’t the princess that the kingdom wants, and that she and her parents have betrayed and lied to their citizens and High Commission. Do to this, she helps her Ruberiot, the Official Songstrel of Mewni, write a song that explicitly confesses to her and her parents’ actions.

The contrast between this song and Queen Moon’s song also helps to highlight precisely how different Star is from past Disney princesses. While the stereotypical Disney princess may sit on the sidelines in order to remain soft, while their prince is allowed to be strong and hard to save them, Star does not fit that mold. It would be inappropriate to say that she is a polar opposite of the princess stereotype, though, and that is what makes her such good representation.

Often times, fictional women are expressed as either “feminine” or “strong.” Writers give their strong female characters lines expressing distaste for fellow women and their femininity, a trope often referred to as “Not Like Other Girls.” Star, on the other hand, breaks this strong vs. feminine dichotomy, as she is both strong and confident in her femininity. While Star’s wardrobe in the show almost entirely consists of dresses, she also has an affinity for weapons and both physical and magical combat. Star goes out of her way to fight villains and charge into battles headfirst, because she is confident in her abilities to hold her own. And, while Star’s reckless behavior leads to harm and her downfall in some situations, it is always presented as a “think before doing” issue, rather than a “girls shouldn’t fight” type issue. Star expresses a clear distaste when other characters don’t let her think for herself, as seen in the episode “Blood Moon Ball.”

She expresses to Marco her ability to take care of herself, as well as her desire to be trusted. These feelings are met with thought and understanding, which helps to express particularly how poignant Star vs. the Forces of Evil can be. Many teenagers struggle with the ability to come into their own abilities as they grow up, and often times, when they express that desire to others, they are met with misunderstanding and/or a lack of trust. This conversation between Marco and Star, though, is incredibly touching, due entirely to the fact that Marco makes an attempt to understand Star’s point of view, and he gives a genuine apology for upsetting her.

The New Modern Disney Cartoon

Star vs. the Forces of Evil has proven itself time and time again to be the type of cartoon that stands out among the crowd. It provides positive representation of LGBT identities and stereotypically queer traits, including body dysphoria and a male character having comfort in feminine clothing. Star vs. the Forces of Evil also presents a positive female role model that breaks away from many harmful traits that are often applied to Disney’s princesses. This show provides deeper themes, while still managing to stay child-appropriate and relatively light hearted, and I hope it is a sign for the direction Disney will keep going with their cartoons.

[azariaspace]

So I kinda came out to my math teacher via text (senior trip so I had her number) and present this as a resource/template

Hey there Teacher, So I had something I kind of wanted to talk to you about this week, but you were pretty busy so it was never convenient, and I’m fairly cowardly so I didn’t really try, even though I wanted to. (I didn’t risk it at the airport because Student showed up, and I’m not sure I’m ready to tell him/everyone.) Most of the time, I have these conversations with people because I’ve put my foot in my mouth and said something where I either become the werewolf or start talking about my life. But for once I WANT to do this - for the rumor of the middle-school student like me (though by this time they might be a high-schooler for a few hours? I don’t know.), and for those of us I don’t know about but know either are at School or will be. I’m nonbinary. There’s not really a simple way to explain what that means, but basically 1. I’m a member of the LGBT community; 2. I’m under the transgender umbrella; and 3. I’m neither a boy or a girl. It’s okay to be confused. Or whatever you’re feeling. I don’t know how much experience you have with the nonbinary community, but assuming little, this is a lot to handle. What it doesn’t mean is that I’m a different person. I’m still the same old me: trying to figure out how to be a student and chronically ill at the same time, passionate about music and justice, and committed to loving God, those I know, and those I don’t. I honestly don’t remember the first time I claimed this label for my experiences; all I know is that it definitely was a thing by March 2014, when I printed off an article about trans people and annotated every experience that resonated with me. Before discovering “nonbinary”, I couldn’t understand the feeling I now call dysphoria - the incongruence between your gender and either your physical gender expression or society’s interpretation of your gender expression. (That’s why dysphoria and being trans is different from dysmorphia and things like eating disorders - dysmorphias come from not seeing a physical reality, but dysphorias come from seeing a physical reality and knowing a different, and often conflicting, internal reality.) Before nonbinary, I used “broken”. But not in the sinful, wretched heart way we all are. In an “irreparable by God - and unwanted, because why can’t I just be a girl like He wants?” When I considered that maybe that wasn’t what He wanted, my faith and joy in Him flourished. I don’t know what to do with “male and female He created them”, other than point out that Judaism has six genders and reference the “There is now… no male and female” passage. People theorize that gender won’t even be a thing in Heaven. I don’t want to say anything bold or out of place, but perhaps a lack of a gender (one way people can be nonbinary, and the way I am) is just a foretaste of Heaven. Perhaps wrestling with dysphoria, which manifests, among other ways, in wanting to find the physical location of my soul in my chest and claw it out of me, is a form of spiritual warfare as well as a legitimate medical condition according to the DSM-V. All I know is that we serve a God who creates diversity in flora, fauna, and folks. Perhaps gender diversity isn’t so unreasonable to imagine. What do we do with thoughts of predestination, and Psalm 139:13? Dysphoria is a result of sin - not my identity. I believe that it’s the product of living in a fallen world that means that some people’s bodies and societies are wrong or misunderstanding. I could be wrong. I’m very new to this. But nonbinary identities have been around in almost every culture for thousands of years - so it’s not a new thing. If you’re still interested at all in this, I have two final thoughts. The first is that, for what it’s worth, I would like people to use the pronoun “they” when referring to me. The singular they had been around for a long time, and it makes me feel less dysphoric. (So does not calling me girl or ma'am or things of that nature.) It’s not a huge deal at this point, considering how little time we’re going to spend around each other. The second is why I wanted to tell you. Sure, I wanted to tell someone before I graduated. I searched My School’s handbook and didn’t find anything one way or another about coming out and punishment, but it felt dishonest to [wait] out of fear just in case. This is me. The second reason is that, both on this trip and in so many interactions at school, you have demonstrated how truly kind and loving you are. You have a heart for God and others. Whether you think this is a sin or not, whether you think it should be reported to The Head of School or not, whether you discuss it with my parents or not (though I really hope you don’t because I tried once and it did not go well), whatever you do will be out of love and what you think is right - and that’s all I can ask for. If you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask. P.S. - Even though it’s better with a label for my experiences than without one, it’s still really hard and dysphoria is really draining, so add this to the physical chronic illness and you get a better picture of What Happened With Calculus.

She said she’d read it and wanted to chat at some point in person (but we couldn’t because we were boarding a plane), then reiterated the desire to chat and hugged me when my parents got me from the airport.

[backtofronttheatre-blog]

An Introduction to Back to Front Theatre Company’s Production of Fefu and Her Friends

Back to Front Theatre Company are a company that strive to reinvent and reimagine contemporary plays in order to bring them to life in a twenty first century society. In our adaptation of Maria Irene Fornes’ feminist play Fefu and Her Friends, originally written and produced in 1977, we have reimagined many elements of the play that make it so unique. However daring this may be, it speaks volumes to a twenty first century audience, looking back on the troubles within the daily lives of 1930s women.

Fefu and Her Friends is a play wrestling between naturalism and surrealism, thus representing the struggle that the women face to keep all their thoughts and problems inside them. The structure and the style of the play is fundamental to its meaning; its natural, calming and almost homely setting is contradicted by the eerie notion that these women see the walls of their house as restricting, the comfort and the pristinity of their lavish decor is symbolic of the expectations placed upon them and their words and their empty laughter is only a mask for their true feelings.

The play follows four women as they meet and prepare a meeting for a charity presentation for their community. However, this becomes the least of their worries once they delve into the complications of the life of a female in a 1930s patriarchal society. The four women Fefu, an outgoing and rather controversial woman for her time; Christina, a conformist who is seemingly comfortable in her role as woman; Cindy, Fefu’s friend who just wants a simple life and simple friends, but is dealt with the absolute opposite; and Julia, a friendly woman who is on the edge of an existential crisis, all meet at Fefu’s house. We witness first impressions, disagreements, solidarity, blooming feminism, friendships and eventually, a murder.

Back to Front have adapted the original piece to enforce its relevance to a 21st century audience. We have decided to focus on the surrealism of the piece and let this override the naturalism within it - we chose to do this as we felt it enforced the notion that these women are forced to put on a facade in order to live up to the expectations placed upon women during this era. For instance, to amplify the sense of surrealism we added in little moments that would affect the characters the women portray such as prolonged unnecessary laughter that is obviously false and uncomfortable for both the women and the audience alike. In addition to this, we have also added in a random and sporadic outburst of dancing that is only subtly mentioned within the script, however we saw this as an opportunity to create a comical and surreal moment that clearly shows the discomfort that the women feel in everyday life.

Perhaps the most dramatic element that we have implemented into our production is having Julia played by a man but having no real mention of it within the script. There are lines within the play that we felt could definitely support our decision to have Julia played by a man, such as “I can’t be what I used to be” and “I am contagious”. Although these lines are originally referring to perhaps Julia’s mental or physical problems that she faces as a disturbed woman, we felt that they could refer to her struggle of accepting her true identity as woman. Furthermore, we felt that this decision comfortably brought issues of our piece into the 21st century by including themes such as gender dysphoria in a piece that focuses on feminism, thus broadening the branches of feminism explored within the piece. By having Julia played by a male it adds a deeper meaning to what it means to be a woman, especially in the 1930s.

At the end of the original play, Fefu shoots a rabbit at the climax of the final scene. However, in our piece we have opted for a more dramatic and climactic ending to the play, one that causes shock factor for both the audience and the characters. In our piece, the play comes to a head when Fefu takes the gun and shoots Phillip, ending on the line “what have you done?”. The audience is left in suspense - is Phillip dead? Was the bullet real this time? Not only is this beneficial to the overall dramaturgia of the play but it almost provides a sense of relief for Fefu and the audience. The gunshot is a release of the anger and the tension built up throughout the play and particularly the final scene, it becomes almost symbolic of the urge to free yourself from the restrictions of what it meant to be a woman in the 1930s. In this instance, Fefu is ultimately taking back control and experiencing a freedom that she has yet to experience. Similarly, none of the characters really react how one would expect someone to act once they have witnessed a shooting - the women are all shaken but are not distraught as they understand the repression that Fefu has felt as a married woman having to suppress every urge she has to live the life she longs to live.

By putting a modern and surreal twist on play that focuses on important ideals, Back to Front have ensured that Fefu and Her Friends is a play that will explore feminism in a way that is unnatural to a 1930s play, putting the audience and the characters alike in compromising situations whilst keeping them on the edge of their seat.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

I wasn’t prepared for this...

There’s plenty of weird and wacky things going on in America these days. The Apprentice guy is our president, BLM is rioting in defense of criminals and chanting for cops to be killed, SJW’s are rioting against democracy and feminists are walking around dressed as giant vaginas and calling themselves oppressed.

The left tries to normalize everything from Islamic terror to 400 genders but not even I could have imagined they would go low enough to try normalize child abuse. I mean, it’s bad enough that they’re forcing 5 year olds to carry “this pussy grabs back” signs and forced to say “which one of us will be raped next?”, “I shouldn’t need a penis to get paid” and “fuck the patriarchy”. But what’s worse is this whole gender issue that’s becoming out of control.

When people ask me what I think about trans people I give a pretty distinct answer. In general I have no issue of women transitioning into men and men transitioning into women but what I do have an issue with is normalizing children being forced to become transgender.

These two parents went on Buzzfeed in a video called “I Am A Gender Non-Conforming Parent” to brag about how awesome it is to force your child to live as a boy AND a girl because gender doesn’t mean anything, right guys? It’s pretty fucked up. In the video we have a mom… and a mom, raising their kid and essentially messing with them psychologically. “My understanding about gender is that ultimately it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t give you the information about that person.”

In 1965, some kid named David Reimer was born and he was reassigned to become a girl and raised female at birth. He was given hormones, surgeries, etc and he was raised entirely female. For a long time David was fine and researchers and phycologists such as John Money took this as proof that gender identity was learned and not biological. But it ultimately turned out to be a failure after David stopped calling himself a girl aged 11 and transitioned back into being a guy aged 15 and began discouraging others from transitioning, after being depressed for years he killed himself. It’s the many cases like these that are swept under the rug by people who claim that there’s no difference between guys and girls and their behavior and identities are all just a social construct.

Raising your child as something they’re not, the child is going to grow up thinking they are something they’re not. Gender isn’t this amazingly complicated thing some people like to make it out to be. Already kids are being confused as hell because everybody is telling them to question their gender and change their gender, even when they’re just three and four years old.

The fact is, most children who experience gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty. Most kids grow out of it. And the ones who don’t are usually confused by their homosexuality as most GID children turn out to be either gay or bisexual.

Children aren’t born with the cognitive capacities of your average adult, and before the age of 11, most children are simply unable to perform abstract reasoning or understand nuances when having a discussion. Instead, children below this age generally see things in either-or scenarios, and divide the world into dichotomies of “wanted or unwanted.” So when a parent asks a little girl if she wants to be a boy, the little girl probably thinks, yeah sure I want to play in mud and wrestle people so their mom excitedly posts on facebook that she’s a cool mom with a cool transgender kid and books the next appointment to see a therapist to begin the transition process.

How about we let the kid grow up first before we start pumping them with hormones or blocking their hormones, it’s really not that hard to stop yourself from abusing children. Anyway, back to talking about the crazies in this video:

“The person I am today was very much in line with a person that I was or longed to be when I was little. I was a tomboy, my best friends were primarily boys, I played with “boys” toys.”

I don’t know how many times I have to make this point. Liking things that aren’t traditionally for guys or for girls doesn’t make you a new gender. It means that you may not be traditionally masculine or feminine. If I like something that wasn’t traditionally female, it doesn’t mean I should turn myself into a guy or start calling myself genderfluid or whatever one of the 400 new genders I can pick from. What makes these people think that since they have some non-traditional gender trait (which is fine by the way) they have to change their entire gender, transition into a new one and enforce their kids to do the same? What the fuck is going on?

“People ask me, “do you have a boy or a girl?” Whatever that means, this person could be anybody.”

This is like saying it’s wrong for humans to call their babies human because many people identify as a non-human. Whether you’re pushing for children to be genderless and to stop conforming to oppressive gender roles or whether you want them to be known as non-human and stop conforming to oppressive human species roles, first you must throw out everything we know about biology, endocrinology, neuroscience and any last piece of common-sense that you have left - which is something most people just ain’t willing to do.

“It’s real funny because our son is super into sports, like maybe he was like an Olympic athlete in his past-life, like he’s come with all of these sporting talents that were like visible at seventeen months.”

Yes, it’s so funny and weird that your male son is super into sports and is naturally talented at sports even though you’re raising him as a total genderless child. Totally shocked! Who would have thought! … These people like to contradict themselves. First they call their “genderless” child a boy and then they talk proudly about him being a traditional male. This entirely goes against the non-binary, agender narrative. She’s telling us that the kid is just a typical boy but she’s trying to queer him up not because it’s what he wants but it’s what she wants to make herself feel better, so why not mess with him right? It’s like those fat dance moms and beauty pageant moms who force their 3-year old daughter into dancing on stage and wearing wigs and make-up and the mom is stood up in the middle of the audience desperately encouraging and reciting their kid’s choreography and routine while the kid is dying on the inside as everyone watches on, all because the mom wants to live her own fantasy through a toddler.

“I’m constantly trying to like queer up my relationship with him and get him to wear tutus and he hates it, he’s just like NO!”

They laugh at this. They think they’re doing a noble feminist deed by forcing their son to dress and act like a girl, even when they themselves admit that he hates being dressed up in feminine clothes and begs them to stop, they just laugh it off and continue to force it onto him. He’s too young to understand the importance of dressing like a girl but he’s old enough to tell doctors he wants hormone treatment, right? Am I the only one who’s noticing how fucked up this is? What’s the difference between this and forcing a little girl to wear dresses instead of jeans? They go mental when it’s reversed but when they enforce their own version of genderless roles on children, it gets turned into a cool empowering Buzzfeed video to inspire others to do the same.

”He’s taking in like kid media and he has a book that is like just pictures and words but it also has like a picture of a girl and there’s a picture of a boy and but I’m just like child - child. This is where he starts learning like what things are and so I hate the idea that he’s getting imprinted on him what people look like.”

Oh shit, he’s being introduced to reality? Oh fuck, learning about biology is going to cause some problems. I mean, it goes back to what I was saying earlier, getting pissed that a children’s book shows a boy and a girl and calls them a boy and a girl would be the same as a human non-conforming parent getting pissed that there’s a book with human children being called human. I’m so sorry science isn’t changing just because parts of it goes against your fantasy. A woman is a woman, a man is a man, a human is a human. If YOU don’t identify with these, that’s fine, you have my sympathy, but leave children out of it and stop trying to force the world to play along. I can’t believe that saying something as realistic and obvious as “don’t abuse and lie to your children” is now controversial.

“Everybody needs to be reconsidering the way that they’re presenting genders to their kids.”

No. They don’t. This goes to show just how closed-minded these people are for thinking they have the moral high ground to tell every parent out there to join their genderless utopia where everyone pretends to be equal and abide by their oppression rankings and rules and if they don’t, well they’re just bigoted assholes. Why does the word “cult” continue to spring to mind whenever I start talking about their ideology? Maybe it’s for good reason…

[reaperkaneki]

lol i spent my early teenage years immersed in the concept that its okay to be feminine and being girly isn't bad, which is true and a good philosophy to have, and trying to practice that after years of denying any sort of femininity, but it made my later realization that i have always felt at odds with being female so much harder, because i was wrestling with what i perceived as internalized misogyny...

(and make no mistake, that was at least a part of it, of being the "tomboy", the girl who wrestled with the older boys and played video games and had no interest in dolls but also... had every interest in, oh, say, fantasy novels about girls disguising their gender to do Boy Things, or fictional characters with ambiguous gender, and defending the latter's lack of gender to people who insisted they were a boy or a girl, and fantasizing about going to a new school with chest bound, dressed in vague clothing, and having people wonder. yeah, those kinds of interests.)

...but which was actually mostly just dysphoria, a gender dysphoria of being assuredly "female" and having a disconnect, or rather not perceiving myself as female (as i became more and more accustomed to the notion that clothes are not inherently gendered and that anyone of any appearance or presentation can be of any gender) but of others perceiving me as female according to the clothes i wore. like, was i a "bad feminist" for hating wearing dresses? no, i was a transgender teen struggling to understand just what that meant.

i somehow stumbled onto the concept of nonbinary gender and had the revelation that, actually, all this time, maybe i wasn't a girl? and it clicked, and i ordered my first incredibly-shitty-cheap-definitely-dangerous-but-i-was-like-fifteen-and-at-least-it-wasn't-bandages binder and had it sent to my friend's house. because i knew my parents wouldn't or couldn't (no, wouldn't, anyone can be supportive if they try, no matter how old or from what background they hail) understand. and when my friend presented it to me, i rushed to the school bathroom before class and wore it, and i had my hair short, and not five minutes later some girls were whispering in the hallway about "is that a boy or a girl?" and it felt good. and i realized again, or rather was reaffirmed, yes, this is what is right. this is how i am.

so i became more and more comfortable and happy with my newfound gender, and i presented how i wanted, and generally felt good about that particular aspect of my life. sure, i wanted to go on t, and maybe have top surgery, and yes, when i thought about that sort of thing i was vaguely miserable at not knowing how to access medical transition resources, but also being a teenager and a minor and a high school student with somewhat conservative parents (whose relationship with me was worsening by the day, not that we'd been close since i was a small child anyway). and how, despite knowing my "truth", barely anything had seemed to change. people still thought of me as female, except for, after months, a few of my closest friends.

and i knew i was not a trans man, either, although if it's a choice between called a guy or a gal i'll choose guy any day. i realized that even though i desperately wanted to transition, i didn't know what i could transition to. ideally, a completely androgynous being whose gender is unknown. but there's no neutral gender. not legally, barely even socially. without me going up and telling them, people are going to assume either i am male or female, because nonbinary as a gender is not widely acknowledged. moreover, it's ridiculed.

i spent a lot of time despairing over how probably no one is going to see me as the gender i am. and i wish i could say that that worry has abated, but that is still pretty much the state of my gender right now, indefinitely. there is no transition for the me whose ideal is 'transitional'; transition implies a beginning to an end result, and there is no satisfactory end result in sight for me. i do not bind, anymore. it is too hot outside, and even without the insufferable weather, i break out into hives if i wear something so tight. plus, working retail while binding is incredibly harsh on the body. i am so tired, mentally speaking, that i have given up on coming out and transitioning. maybe if the political climate was better. maybe if i had more money. maybe.

but i do not have the energy to explain to everyone i meet that i am not a girl, and not a boy, and that is something you can be, and no it is not some weird liberal millenial snowflake thing, and no i'm not a h*rmaphr*dite, you cannot ask about my genitals, no you cannot call me It, i am not a thing, i am a person and i am deserving of respect even though i don't feel like it most of the time, and arguing, arguing, explaining, hoping that the people who i like when i'm posing as a cis person will still be likeable when i reveal i'm not. because y'all, i don't have much in the way of friends or personal relationships anymore. i don't get out much. i'm a hermit and a coward and i don't have much spirit to crush anymore so if i work up the nerve to come out to someone and i get brushed off, i get outright rejected, i think that would be it for me. like, that's my life right now. that's just... how it is. i only have so much energy and mental fortitude and i spend that on day-to-day things and trying to keep myself content enough to want to keep going.

[enbyflock2]

Cisgender Men in the Field of Music: A Phenomenon! (?)

(Disclaimer: the discussion questions raised at the end about body transitions and hormones, in no way, discredits anyone that wants to go through with that process for themselves, [or has made that decision for themselves]. I fully support and understand anyone that wants to go through transitions or take hormones. There are many valid reasons to fully transition).

           As a non-binary, assigned-male-at-birth transgender person who is pursuing a music education degree, I have always been curious about music’s effect on people at both the social and psychological level. Socially, it was always of interest for me in high school to see that the creative spaces in my school system was where there tended to be the broadest range of students in different socio-economic classes. This was usually not the case within sports, where I noticed that football and basketball tended to appeal to the students in upper socio-economic classes and, of course, they were separated by gender. I was also pleasantly amused and socially relieved by the straight, cismale senior drum major putting on a dress occasionally at marching band rehearsals, and amused by my straight, cismale friends throwing on dresses at campfire night to dance to my guitar playing and singing when I was senior drum major.

Psychologically, music has been of interest to me because I have grown up with my sister who has Asperger’s and observed the way music has affected her. I had a couple friends in high school with Asperger’s, one being involved with arts and the other being involved with music for a short time. I remember being curious about the effect these creative spaces had on them, and remembering my band teacher once pointing out that this friend of mine had an exceptional sense of intonation and rhythmic precision on his clarinet. I remember, growing up, being absolutely mesmerized by Evelyn Glennie, the world-renowned deaf percussionist, and occasionally watching the videos of Oliver Sacks interviewing savants and recording their incredible performances on musical instruments. At a personal level, I have been very curious about my own self and my relationship and identity within music, as I now recognize that music can have the ability to alleviate my social dysphoria and, to a certain extent, my body dysphoria, as music can be incredibly helpful with establishing a positive relationship to one’s body.

           With these interests in mind, I decided to interview cisgender men in the music department here at University of Puget Sound. I talked with ten of them, and decided to get two from every instrumental department: woodwinds, brass, strings, singers, and accompanists/percusssionists. I interviewed a clarinetist and flute player, a tuba and euphonium player, two violists, a tenor voiced singer and a baritone voiced singer, and two pianists. I wanted to get one accompanist and one percussionist, but I struggled to find a percussionist with a music degree. I was okay with any and all types of music degrees: music education, music performance, bachelor of arts in music, and even double majors, with one major being in an outside field and the other being a BA in music. The interview questions were very open-ended, and I tried to interview them in pairs. The questions brought them to reflect on their past and present life experiences. The questions asked them about involvement with sports, their reactions to music making in the past and present, and their perceptions of gender. Each interview session ranged from about forty minutes to an hour.

           To be honest, I was not surprised with any of the answers that were given. However, I was definitely intrigued by all of their personal responses and anecdotes. While many of the answers were varied and personalized, there are trends and conclusions that I reached from the interview sessions.

           In regards to questions such as involvement with sports and reactions to making music in the past, there was a broad range of answers given. I heard a wide diversity of sports mentioned, such as soccer, track and field, cross-country, weightlifting, swim team, baseball, football, basketball, wrestling, ultimate frisbee, and lacrosse. There was also a spectrum in regards to levels of involvement with the sports: from absolutely no involvement with sports all the way to high involvement with sports. There was the question of how sports conflicted with music, if at all. The guys that played sports occasionally or at a lesser level of commitment tended to have little to no conflict between making music and playing sports. The two men that had the most conflict with sports were Davis and Sam. Davis, a junior clarinet performance major with emphasis on education, was very involved with baseball in school. Davis told me “I wanted to play it in college up until junior year [of high school]… I was Varsity captain my senior year… I was a pretty good player.” With conflicts between baseball and making music, Davis told me “there was a certain amount of insensitivity from my coach and my band director when I had miss things for something else… there was a time I got sat down in a game because I had to miss a practice for a jazz band concert… and I wanted to be like, ‘Coach, they’re my team too, you know.’” Sam, a sophomore music education major, played the most sports out of the interview group, playing baseball, football, soccer, track and field, and doing weightlifting. Opposite from Davis, Sam felt like there were many opportunities for conflict, but he “made it work for [himself].” The only comments he got from coaches or band teachers were occasional passive-aggressive comments that he found he could easily brush aside.

           One of the questions I posed to the group was “If you remember the first time you picked up an instrument or started singing, what was your initial reaction? Did you find it more intellectually stimulating, an emotional experience, both, or neither?” Then I posed the questions “What are your initial reactions to making music today, in the present?… If your reaction has changed or developed over the years, why do you think it has?” For these questions, I received a variety of responses, but then also great consistency within certain answers. The two majors whose primary instrument is their voices described their initial experiences with music to be very emotional. For the instrumentalists that could vaguely remember their first time with singing, most of them remembered the initial reaction as more emotionally driven than intellectual. However, for the instrumentalists, there was large variety in their responses for the first time they picked up an instrument. Sam’s reaction was very emotionally based when he first picked up the tuba, as was Taylor’s, a senior music education major, when he picked up piano. However, Henry, a sophomore economics bachelor of science major and music BA, remembered his initial experience on piano to be more intellectual. The two violists felt their initial experiences with violas was very intellectually driven. Jordan, a junior music education major, describes that, “When you first pick up a viola in fourth grade, it’s very hard to have an emotional response out of it. It’s just not how it works when you don’t know how to play it… Little Jordan really wanted to know how it worked!”

           What is unanimous though is that all of them have had a “balancing out” of reactions to making music now in the present. The men that saw it as more emotional first became drawn to a more intellectual perspective of music after studying in college, and the same goes vice versa. Some of the men still feel more drawn to their original perspective of making music above their newfound perspectives, but some feel drawn to their newer reactions, or have had a blend of both an intellectual and emotional reaction. When I asked them all if they feel ciswomen in the field of music would develop any differently with their reactions to making music in terms of intellectual or emotional stimulation, I received a unanimous questioning response along the lines of “Why would they react any differently?” Some of the responses I received elaborated further on this question and discussed on what terms they may react differently, which leads me into the answers on the perception of gender within music.

           There were common threads of discussion and themes that kept recurring when we talked about perception of gender within the field of music. One was that all of the men felt they did not receive direct messages telling them that pursuing music was an “unmanly” career path, but if they did receive any messages it was within indirect communication from others. Some of this indirect communication was received from the family environment with the concerns of making it financially and sometimes the value of the “male breadwinner” was brought into play, but the men that received these messages never felt the family was directly unsupportive. Taylor recalls living with his grandmother for his first fourteen years of his life and how “she was very old school in the way that she raised me, but she was open-minded… but the rest of my family… having twelve male cousins and four uncles, it was very ‘manly�� so to speak… no one would ever outwardly say that this was not a man’s thing to do… but my grandma once told the family that you can’t say to him this is not a man’s thing to do.” Some of the indirect communication was received from the school environment, as both Colin and Michael were made fun of in school, but never directly physically harassed or bullied. Colin, a junior flute performance major, recalled humorously, “I was made fun of middle school… especially for playing the flute, because the flute was viewed as a female-oriented instrument… and I was chubby and had long bleached hair. I was kind of like a little weirdo!”

           Another theme that appeared was one about privilege. Four of the men said something about sometimes feeling guilty that playing music seemed like a “selfish thing” to be doing, as not everyone has that privilege. Another theme was recognition that men are still somewhat dominant in certain areas of the field of music. While everyone unanimously agreed that cisgender women would not develop any differently from cisgender men in regards to their reactions to making music in terms of purely intellectual and emotional stimulation, there was a outlying discussion that cisgender women may only react differently probably because of the male dominance in certain fields of music. Colin points out that he sees a lot of irony in that his middle school environment for flute players was heavily gendered as a female oriented instrument, but today when he goes to flute clinics, most all of them are “gay men.” Zane, a senior music education major, said “I see a lot of women in the education field… but women pursuing conducting would feel differently from me, maybe, or probably, because of what they have to go through… especially because all the old masters in conducting are old dudes in general… I see a lot more women in professional orchestras than I do with women in conducting.”

           In regards to asking about their perception of their own identity within the male gender, there was always somewhat a response of “What does the ‘typical man’ even mean?” When the topic was further elaborated, there were common tropes that were brought up describing men in the field of music, such as “socially conscious,” “sensitive,” “intellectual,” “reserved,” “transcendent,” and even “gender neutral,” or “not gender specific.” Forrest, a senior viola performance major, described that “ever since middle school, all of my closest friends have been female… and I’m not sure why that is… all my female friends knew I was a straight guy with no gender identity crisis or confusion happening.” When I asked them, “Do you have a preconceived notion on what a “typical man” is?… Do you care to meet any of these notions at all?” there seemed to be a common thread of desiring to keep their internalized qualities of “manhood” that only serve their physical and mental well being, as well as their developed social and moral values they wished to keep.          

Doing this minimal, local “fieldwork” process was a lot of fun, but the topic of gender in music, and gender in general, is clearly one that leaves room for much more discussion and questions. It is also, obviously, one I have a lot of personally vested interest in.

           In my experience with music tying together kids from a variety of socio-economic classes in my primarily white hometown, it seems to be the same case for men in the field of music in regards to the stories they told me about what sports they played and their overall secondary education experience. I wonder if I would continuously receive the same variety in stories at a public university, or in an interview process with several more people drawn from both public and private universities.

I was very intrigued by how there were a large variety of initial reactions for both emotional and intellectual, but even the factor of singers feeling more emotionally drawn compared to violists being more intellectually drawn, and the wide spectrum of answers from wind and accompanist instruments, made complete sense. Singing is an activity that directly correlates from your relationship to your body, and vocal education at the fundamental level is structured to help you engage the entirety of your body through instructional activities. Violists, on the other hand, have to engage with their instrument very intellectually at first, as it is like a puzzle trying to learn how to play viola at the fundamental level. Brass and woodwind players understandably had a spectrum of initial responses, as woodwind and brass instruments are all designed very differently, and the reaction, I theorize, is mostly dependent whether or not the instrument is demanding you to have engagement with your body first or engagement with technical facility first. The pianists Henry and Taylor both had opposite responses, and even this makes sense. Piano is one of those instruments that allows for a large range of initial responses, as it is an instrument that allows for an initial approach of either exploration or heavy technical facility.

It makes sense that all of these responses have kind of balanced out in the present, and there have been both intellectual and emotional reactions within their life experiences. I theorize that musicians that are experiencing their instrument or voice as a bodily sensation initially come to learn more about the technical and theoretical side of music and this somewhat balance out their reactions. Likewise, it makes sense that the two violists in my group have found more emotional reactions within music making, as when you finally start to solve the “puzzle” of viola playing you can then feel more at ease with your naturalistic body movements to further enhance the sound. As someone that occasionally experiences body dysphoria but feels alleviated from it through playing saxophone and occasionally singing, I truly believe there is a correlation between involving your body with your instrument and voice and gaining an emotional reaction. It would be great to test this correlation with further tests and surveys reaching to other university music majors, and it could almost be made into an interesting psychological case study.

I am definitely interested in all the social aspects of my fieldwork study. Apparently a lot of the men felt like the field of music, as a whole, is not heavily “gendered.” I would be curious to see if ciswomen in the field of music would feel the same way, and if there would be differences in response between private and public universities. I am curious if they would think that they have a disadvantage in the field because of societal norms, sexism, or other situations. I wonder that, even if ciswomen may feel a disadvantage, if they feel like there is progress being made. As from my perspective, I feel like there is much progress made in the field of music with regards to perceptions of gender, but I am not entirely sure, because most of my perspective of the music field comes from this school.

When I received the answers about how all of their past environments responded to them for being cismen involved with music, I was happy to see that, even though they may have received indirect communication from the family and school environment not to pursue it, they also received great support from family and school. I was also happy to see that a few of the men made a conclusion that I often make towards gender, which is that binary gendered people are allowed to act in a way they see fit towards their gender. But it becomes problematic if they subjugate other people for not acting in the way they see fit to their personal perspective towards gender.

Which leads me to many broad areas of personal curiosity towards gender, dysphoria, and supposedly less “gendered” spaces such as music. I am similar to the men I interviewed in that I have received great family and friend support for pursuing my degree. However, I have had a fair share of backlash of indirect and direct communication telling me this was not a proper thing to do as a man, from both family and my past school environments, as well as general harassment and bullying in school for not acting like a man. I am often left to wonder about dysphoria, and whether or not if it is something purely internal and naturally set from birth, or if it is internalized and dependent on social environments, i.e. “nurture”? I wonder if people with dysphoria can internalize gender differently if they move around into varying other social environments, or if it is set after a certain age? Assuming that music and the arts are spaces that are not very “gendered” as I gathered from this fieldwork, would dysphoria even be triggered if more spaces outside of music were not so heavily “gendered?” These are not questions I know the answer to, but they are of relevance. With a new election term and an administration that will heavily stigmatize LGBT folks, the prospect of transgender people not receiving body transitions and hormones they want may be more likely, and the option of not ever going through these may continue to be seen as a considerable option. If areas outside of the music and the arts were less “gendered,” would dysphoria even be triggered as much, and will transgender people even feel the need to do body and hormone transitions? Are music and the arts one of the few places that can offer relief to dysphoria and social acceptance for gender nonconforming people, or could other social circles progress and learn that these differences in gender perception and expression should not be stigmatized?