#that was like...the year after i found out Trans People Exist In Real Life and i hadn't really figured out i am one lmfaooooo

[stirdrawsandreblaws]

another thing while i'm going through these files...just noticing how often i did edits for "me" characters that were androgynous, and how often i drew "me" characters the same way....

[sev-wildfang]

2015 - 2024

it has been a while since ive felt the courage or need to post something like this. i worked very hard to scrub all pre-2016 photographs of me off the internet in fact, something i realize was not in the spirit of the person who inspired me at all.

for the sake of brevity im not going to post the entirety of my transition. some two or odd years into it i was fully immersed in the feminine persona i was trying to become but still filled with a yearning that seemed to be incurable.

it was a chance encounter on this website that changed my course forever. i saw a transition timeline by a user who has since deleted their blog, detailing year by year their journey to become a kind of trans woman i didnt even know could exist at that point: a trans-feminine butch.

the clarity of their vision intrigued me. it opened a door where previously i only saw an insurmountable wall. this was something one could want to become. this was not a failure state. this was a lighthouse.

"you measure yourself by stricter standards than you do cis women", my then therapist said, "you allow yourself to play with masculinity in your art. in your art you seem to be able to separate it from male-ness. do you think you might want that in real life?"

immediately after that conversation, i looked at the timeline post again. i decided to get a haircut - a variation of the same short undercut that has become my go-to since. i slowly phased out the dresses that had carried my thru the hardest times of my budding transition. most of them i gifted to other trans women who had more of a need for them.

i set to work on my self once more with new purpose and i found first joy, then peace in the never-ending process of becoming. like every terminally online dyke in 2020 i read Stone Butch Blues, read The Locked Tomb, read Hot Allostatic Load, buzzed my hair off twice, got way too many tattoos to count, found community and friendship in my local queer scene as well as among butches online, and learned that i have the capability to love more than one person. and i love all of the people i used to be and no longer am; the problem child, the teenage romantic, the spiteful young man, the girl wrestling with herself, the baby butch still worried about keeping her tokens of femininity about her, the idiot who tought working night shifts was a good idea, and the clown who said this would be short post just some paragraphs ago.

the user who made that post was a lighthouse that went out as soon as i made it to shore, if you forgive the sentimentality. i am not half the butch they were (and maybe still are?) but maybe that's enough to be worth something to someone. it is something to me.

[13thdoctorposts]

Sometimes it’s important to know when to let a show go. 

When 13 regenerated into 14 and had her clothes burnt off like a witch on a stake, sending a horrible message about women and gender RTD came out and said he did it to protect David from right wing media. Then the fans defended David coming back and that RTD would address why he had that face and why the clothes also regenerated, although I was upset with 13s regeneration I thought ok I’ll wait and see how this get handles. Because even though I don’t like the real world messaging maybe the in world messaging will be enough to make it ok.

But then what happens? We get a trans story for the very first story with very positive messaging for trans issues which is great but undermined by the fact RTD wanted to protect David from gender critiques by the right wing but didn’t seem to want to protect Yasmin Finney. So first David can’t wear Jodies costume for protection but then RTD has Yasmin live through being deadnamed in the show which she herself has said made her uncomfortable and then also gave her character the line of telling the Doctor to not assume pronouns… which any of the characters could have done but RTD chose Rose and then what happen? What always happens with the right wing, the pronoun line and the male presenting line are the ones that the right wing all go on about in every video, in every article… they deadname the character and then misgender and say horrible things about Yasmin… so RTD protects the 50+ year old white man who’s worn way more feminine things then 13 outfit in his career the media could use if they wanted to go after him but don’t protect the 20 year old Trans Woman? How people aren’t talking about how fucked up that is I don’t know.

Then we get no reason why the Doctor has that face and why the clothes regenerated on them. Then in their own regeneration… they don’t! They bi-regenerates and this time Ncuti does get the Doctor clothes, well half of them… why didn’t 15 regenerate with their own clothes? No instead we have the new Doctor walking around with no pants on… and why is it that 15 has to go pantless and not David? are we protecting David again? Perfectly fine to have a bunch of pics of 15 in his tighty whities and no pants but again David could not be seen in 13s full gender neutral outfit. 

Then to top all this off theres no mention in the loves lost of Yaz… even though the Doctor chose to drop her off in a park 3 days ago after telling her if they could Date anyone it would be Yaz… is that not love lost? Was saying good bye to Yaz not an emotional trigger? Now people are saying thats because only the dead were brought up… Rose is not dead unlike Yaz Rose is not only alive in another Dimension but also got herself a Doctor… Yaz currently is mourning the Doctor while they cant even seem to remember she existed despite dropping her off 3 days a go… so they weren’t all dead… however Rose was over 1000 years ago and Yaz 3 days ago… what hurts more the lost of someone you loved but who is still alive from 50 years ago or the one you lost last week? What makes logical sense is the love you lost most recently hurts the most… and people dont need to die for you to hurt losing them from your life if you love them.

Now we have 2 Doctors and people are already saying they can’t wait for David Tennant episodes, so if you think the 10th Doctor overshadowed the other Doctors when he was no longer the Doctor how overshadowed do you think the first main Doctor of colour is going to be when lots of peoples favourite white Doctor ever is also a legitimate Doctor in universe existing at the exact same time with a TARDIS? Ncuti doesn’t event get to be the only Doctor during his tenure he has to share it with David.  

The lastly no mentions of Yaz at all… seems shes completely forgotten and at the very end the Doctor says they are finally with their family the happiest he’s ever been… what a diss of every TARDIS team ever that the Doctor has found family with… your last crew you literally called your ‘Fam’, the Ponds you actually married into… Susan was your flesh and blood… but no this family you haven’t seen in 1000 years, of which only one of who was part of your TARDIS team are the ones you finally found family with and make you the happiest you’ve ever be? Literally at the exact same time the Doctor is sitting at that table saying all of that, Yaz is mourning the Doctor and not wanting to have left the TARDIS, but she doesn’t get a mention because for some reason if it’s a wlw relationship it means nothing and can be ignored completely. 

Honestly by the end the Doctor just seems like a complete prick, and not in a 13 I’m dealing with internal trauma and I accidentally snapped way but just in a I’m a shit person way. Talk about compromised morals, people wouldn’t shut up about it with 13 but the Doctor just left a young woman to mourn them while being the “happiest they have ever been” grabbing themselves a new family and pretending Yaz doesn’t exist. Talk about shit morals. People say Chibs didn’t know anything from 12s era, which wasn’t true it directly affected the way 13 kept the fam at arms length but after watching this clearly RTD didn’t even know what happened in the episode 14 regenerated from 13 in and the previous episode Legend of the Sea Devils, because surely if you did, you wouldn’t not mention Yaz at all and give a reason why the Doctor wouldn’t go see her while she’s mourning them and just grabbing a new family and claiming to be the happiest you’ve ever been in the 2000 years of life you remember. Because that would make the character look like a prick, not a hero, which is exactly what happened. If RTD is the amazing writer people claim, he could have come up with a Yaz mention and a reason why the Doctor wasn’t going to see her.

I know not everyone was happy with the wlw representation with Thasmin but you know what’s way worse? Not even mentioning it or even acknowledging Yaz’s existence.

And to top it off I am so very very over the double standard of the fandom… this episode, had plot holes, had important things that weren’t explained… like why that face and why did the clothes regenerate… things that weren’t explained that weren’t so important like where did the sonic screw driver come from, why can it do all the things it now does… it had racism from both the Toymaker and Donna… what on earth was that line about ‘do you come in every colour’, was paced poorly, it clearly should have been longer and decided to mess with lore by creating bi-rengeration out of thin air and not explaining how it would effect things going forward or why it even happen, like a true WTF… if Chibs had done even one of these things, or wrote this episode the exact same way the fandom would be coming for him instead they are praising the genius of RTD not caring about any of those things, all the sins they claimed Chibs did and some of them on a bigger scale in this episode but the treatment of RTD is the polar opposite. 

It’s unbelievably hypocritical, and makes the fandom look even worse for being so hard on the first female Doctor because none of this was acceptable for her but its not only fine but great with a male Doctor.

So I think it’s time for me to let this show go, and know it’s time to bow out. Because unlike the people who have been horrible about 13 for the last 6 years I understand sometimes you have to step away from something you love when its no longer for you and leave it for other people to love.

Im out with 13.

[archangeldyke-all]

i think i’ll die if we don’t get pt. 2 of sev and her trans identity, it was so good, i let out a breathe of contentment. thank you so much 💗💗💗

omg i'm so glad u liked it! i got another request for more of ceo sev, so i'm gonna combine these two :)

request for ceo Sevika & reader during their first meet/interviewing process pls 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

men and minors dni

sevika's loving being ceo.

nobody dares to give her even an inkling of shit at work anymore, and she thinks it's kinda funny watching people who were once so vile to her cower in fear when they deliver reports to her office.

she's good at her job, if a little scary when pissed. since she's started as ceo, the company's seen better numbers than ever before, all thanks to the changes she implemented the moment she took over.

the pay raise has been great too. with so much more disposable income, sevika's started to treat herself more and more frequently to pretty things and fun experiences.

most of her wardrobe is designer, custom tailored to her measurements. she's got several nice pieces of jewelry, gold chains and watches that all cost more than her yearly paycheck when she was working as a busser as a kid.

she's gotten herself two new cars, and moved herself into a penthouse apartment high above the twinkling lights of the city below.

she's been getting weekly massages and facials, and she's started getting her toes and nails done too-- nothing fancy, just a clear coat on top of perfectly manicured nails.

all in all, sevika's living her best life.

but there's one problem.

(two, if you ask her when she's drunk enough.)

the main problem is that she still can't find a good assistant. it's been a year and a half of her new position, and she's already gone through six assistants.

(the other problem, which she holds much closer to her heart, is that she's got a giant, luxurious bed at home, and nobody to cuddle her in it.)

her first assistant was... fine. he wasn't anything special, but he did his job well enough that sevika was willing to keep him around. he quit after four months, though, apparently 'tired of the office environment.'

the next three assistants all came and went within a week. the first was fired when sevika caught them snorting a line of cocaine off of her desk. the second quit after her she spilled an entire pot of coffee on herself. and the third made a sly remark under her breath that sevika hadn't been meant to hear, but heard anyways.

she found a reliable assistant in an ambitious young man, but he left after six months to return to university to get his graduate degree. he recommended his cousin take over the position, and sevika took him up on it.

his cousin was a nice young woman who held out for a few months with sevika, and made her coffee just like she liked it. but when her boyfriend proposed and asked her to move cross-country with him for his job, she said yes, and left sevika high and dry once again.

so now she's back to interviews. she fucking hates interviews.

she groans as she struts to her office door trying to give herself a pep-talk as she swings her glass door open and looks toward the reception desk for her next interview.

she chokes on her tongue when she sees you sitting in a chair, fiddling with the corner of your resume as you wait.

you're... beautiful. everything about you. sevika takes a moment to gawk at you before you notice her. you're like a walking wet dream just fucking... appeared in her waiting room. sevika's not sure if she's going to be able to get through this interview.

she calls your name off her clipboard, trying to ignore how much she likes the word in her mouth, and she loses her breath completely when your eyes snap up from your resume and you smile at her.

oh fuck. please let her be an asshole. sevika thinks, unwilling to believe someone as seemingly perfect as you could exist.

you're actually the farthest thing from an asshole in the world.

you're charming and giggly and you've got really great questions for sevika, like how she likes her coffee and what time she normally eats lunch.

you're under-qualified for the job, and when sevika points this out you cringe and shrug, scratching the back of your neck endearingly.

"i've never been a personal assistant before-- but i'm an incredibly fast learner, and if i can be honest, for this much money? i'd give a limb to keep you happy." you say, chuckling. sevika gulps, and bites her tongue to keep from saying some of the suggestions swirling in her mind of other ways you could keep her happy.

"well, a limb won't be necessary, but i should warn you. i've been told i can be a bit... cold. i'm no good with words, and i don't talk if i don't need to. it's nothing personal." she says. you smirk and tilt your head at her.

"you?" you ask, your eyes dancing up and down sevika's form in a way that makes her feel... tingly. "yeah, i guess i could see that." you say, giggling. sevika furrows her brow as she studies you.

"what's that supposed to mean?" she asks. something inside of her bubbles up, defensive and ready to kick you out of her office the second you say something wrong. she's been working on her defensive anger with her new therapist, well aware that it's just a way of protecting herself from potential disappointment, but she can't help it right now. because she'd be so fucking disappointed if you-- pretty, charming, slightly ditzy you-- were suddenly an asshole out of nowhere.

you just giggle and shrug. "you're so pretty it's hard to tell at first glance, but now that we're talking i can see that grumpiness creeping through." you say, smiling.

are you... teasing her?

and did you just call her pretty?

sevika blinks at you, the swirl of anger in her stomach fizzling out and leaving her vulnerable. she bites her lip, shakes her head, and reminds herself that this is a job interview. not a first date. she shouldn't be feeling all soft and giddy and excited right now.

she clears her throat and looks through her notes. you've answered all her questions, you've given the right answers for them all too. there's nothing left for her to do but just give in and hire you-- you're clearly perfect for the job.

she needs to find something wrong with you before she fucking... falls in love with you right here and now.

sevika takes a deep breath, then starts her interrogation.

"this job... it's not nine to five. that's what everyone else in the office works, but you'll be here when i get in to when i leave. some days, you'll be here before sunrise 'til after sunset." she says. you nod.

"that's fine with me." you say. sevika huffs.

"and you should know... i'm gay." she says, cringing the second the words leave her mouth. she never talks about this in interviews, but she's just hoping that you react poorly so she can write you off. you just blink at her.

"o-okay?" you ask. "are you asking me out or something?" you say, giggling. this catches her off guard, and sevika's jaw drops.

"what?" she asks. you shrug.

"i mean... i'd be into it, but i'd kinda like to know if i got the job before you take me to dinner." you say, laughing. sevika snorts, a smile pulling at her lips, and she pinches herself to keep from leaping across the table and kissing you.

"i'm trans too." she blurts. you blink at her again.

"...okay." you say, a little confused. "if you want... i could put reminders in your daily schedule for your hormones?" you ask, trying to figure out how the revelation ties to the job interview.

sevika just blinks at you, shocked and a little pissed off that the woman of her dreams has appeared in her life, only to become her assistant rather than her girlfriend.

sevika grunts, rubs her face, then sighs as she looks at you. you look concerned.

"did i do something wrong?" you ask, nervous. sevika sighs.

"no. you're perfect. i'm just... where the fuck have you been this whole time?" she asks, a little hysterical. you break out into a bright smile, and sevika's heart does a backflip.

"so...?"

"can you start tomorrow?"

taglist!

@fyeahnix @sapphicsgirl @half-of-a-gay @ellabslut @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner @shimtarofstupidity @love-sugarr @chuucanchuucan @222danielaa @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther @gr0ssz0mbi3 @ellsss @sevikaspillowprincess @leomatsuzaki @emiliabby

[edandstede]

i found ofmd not long after i’d come out as a gay trans man. i came out after years of knowing i was and deliberately repressing it, refusing to poke it or acknowledge it, terrified of it. i didn’t want to see it. couldn’t be me, if i ignored it it would go away. like stede, i would cry when i thought nobody could hear me. it was so lonely, shutting that part of myself off, and coming out just to my own close circle (not family at this point) was the scariest thing i’ve ever done.

this show… fucking hell, this show. it held me gently but firmly and told me in no uncertain terms that everything i knew about being a man was wrong, that i could be who i wanted to be and it was never too late to grab it with both hands. it helped me work through things in my head, consider myself in new ways, forced me to reflect. yes, i could be authentic, i could be flamboyant, i could wear what i want, i could be tough, vulnerable, effeminate, silly, a bit of a loser even. i could cry, i could try and fail and try again. i could be messy and human and deserve happiness and love. i could shape my life into something that truly makes me happy, and i could do it all with a family of my own choosing. i could be free.

it took this new and fragile existence for me, something i was still bricking it about, and reminded me of the utter joy of being queer and stepping into yourself properly. of community, belonging, expression, self-actualisation. i didn’t even realise how much i needed ofmd until i had it, and i could scarcely believe it was real! this brilliant gem, full of eccentricity and poignancy and just brimming with love, so much love, from every single direction. it was a breath of fresh air, just like it was for so many others. there’s never been anything quite like it and any future queer media like it has big shoes to fill.

i just turned 28, i’m finally out to my family as trans, i’m ready to send off my deed poll to change my name, i’m crowdfunding for top surgery and i’m in the process of being referred to a GIC. this show’s kindness, its unwavering love towards people like me, it bolstered my courage and bravery SO MUCH and i’ve taken steps towards getting the life i truly want that i never dared i’d take. i want to be myself, i want to stop holding myself back, i want to do things i’ve never been brave enough to chase before. isn’t that amazing? my life is finally an adventure i can’t wait for. and i’ve received so much love and support from all of you too - you’ve donated to my surgery fund, you’ve sent kind messages, you’ve connected with me about being trans. for all the negative stuff i’ve come across in this fandom, there’s double the amount of love and i’ve felt it first-hand.

i truly am not the same person i was before ofmd and that is so fucking brilliant, i couldn’t be more grateful. i’m heartbroken that, as of now, ofmd won’t be returning to us. but it has touched my life in such a special way, written on me in permanent ink, you might say. and i just think it’s a really lovely thing nobody can take away, this lasting impression. i’ll always carry ed and stede and the crew in my heart, even when the revenge is nothing more than scrap wood and old fabric.

:•) 🏴‍☠️❤️

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Buck Angel

Published: Jul 21, 2023

A guest post by Buck Angel, which really should be in The New York Times—maybe they’ll republish it?

Every day, I’m called a new name. Sometimes it’s something obviously insulting, like bigot or transphobe. Sometimes it’s something more subtly designed to twist my knickers, like female. My critics assume this will wound me, because for the last 30 years, I have lived as a man. I medically transitioned at age 30, after what felt like a lifetime of struggle, and after many years of therapy and evaluation.

Transition saved my life. But being called female doesn’t hurt me, because while I changed my body, I’m well aware that I can’t change my sex. And even though I’ve felt since I was a young child that I would have preferred to be—and should have been—born male, I don’t believe that children should medically transition. I’m one of the oldest and most visible female-to-male transsexuals in the country, but because of my views, today’s trans activists not only don’t speak for me, they try to cancel me.

Let’s rewind. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, a time of tomboys, when I was one of several typically masculine girls in short hair and sports shorts, running wild. There wasn’t much difference between me and those other tomboy girls back then; I beat up the boys and earned their respect. For the most part, my parents let me dress and live as a boy. The few times I had to wear a dress for church were torture, but other than that I had an excellent childhood.

My parents assumed my tomboyism was a phase I’d outgrow, but at puberty, I became deeply uncomfortable with my female body, a condition I had no name for back then. I lived for many years as a butch lesbian, and was an internationally successful androgynous model. Sometimes I wore suits, but when they stuffed me into a dress, I would spiral.

Eventually, the disconnect between my body and my sense of myself became too great. Sad and lonely, I turned to drugs, became homeless, engaged in prostitution, lost most of my friends and family, and hit bottom.

Once I got sober, and got therapy, I also got clarity. I told the therapist I felt that I should be—no, that I was—a man, and, unlike everyone else I’d ever said this to, she said, “I hear you. I believe you.” She gave me a diagnosis of what was then called gender identity disorder, which didn’t feel like a stigma. It felt like a lightbulb going off, which allowed me to understand and accept myself. I had a mental condition. That’s why I experienced anguish. Our next task was to figure out how to treat it.

Gender clinics were hardly in existence then. She couldn’t just affirm me and send me off for drugs and surgery with a letter. We spent over a year exploring the source of my distress and what it meant to be or live as a man or woman. She dug deep, she pushed back. And eventually, together, we decided that the potential benefits of transition were worth the risks. I had already passed the “real life” test. Now I went in search of medical treatments.

We filled out an inch-thick pile of paperwork for a program at Stanford, and never even received a reply. Eventually, we found an endocrinologist who explained to me that if I took testosterone, it would be experimental. But by that time, after 25 years of navigating the world as a differently-gendered person and more than a year of intensive psychological evaluation, I was ready.  

I did something even more radical than transitioning once my body changed: I became an adult film star, a man without male parts, making space for nonconforming bodies, raising awareness and increasing body positivity for trans people. Some of my lesbian friends called me a traitor, and haters sometimes called me a tranny, but for the most part, I found acceptance and joy. Until about five years ago, I was happily living as a transsexual, or, as I call it, “a man with a female past.”

Then several things started to change. The word transsexual—a person of one sex who changes their body to appear more like the other—was eclipsed by the word “transgender,” an umbrella term that included everyone from tomboys gently rejecting stereotypes to trans women who’d had penectomies, plus myriad gender identities that seemed to have no locatable meaning. The idea that people could actually change sex, that sex was mutable or unreal, took hold in society, especially with young people.

Then, as some clinicians, including trans women, have admitted, a rash of teen girls started to declare themselves trans and transition; some said they’d had no mental health treatments before doing so. Then I started to hear about and from detransitioners, who’d taken cross-sex hormones or had breast or genital surgeries, not to cure some kind of organic dysphoria but because they’d been taught that if they felt uncomfortable with themselves or their bodies, maybe they needed to change them to match their brains. One study of detransitioners showed 55 percent felt they weren’t properly evaluated.

When it comes to gender dysphoria, talk therapy is more important than anything else. In fact, several European countries are now insisting that therapy is the primary treatment for it, with medical interventions under strict regulation. Physical transition is hard both on your body and mind; I should know. You have to make sure this is the right path for you by working with a therapist who will push back and question and explore the source of your desire to change. Dysphoria is in the brain. If you’re skipping over the brain and going straight to the body, you’re not helping trans people.

People accuse me of climbing the ladder and pulling it up behind me, transitioning and then trying to stop other people from doing so. That’s not my goal at all. I transitioned at age 30 and never looked back or felt I’d made a mistake, and I welcome adults who can adequately weigh the risks and benefits of transition to join me. But I never could have been sure without the struggle I navigated, without my brain growing mature enough to decide. Every choice I made was in adulthood.

One reason I’m so adamant about not medically transitioning children is that those tomboy girls I played with growing up, who were just like me back then, didn’t turn out like me. Some are gay women. Some are straight. Some feminized during or after puberty. Some stayed masculine. Childhood gender nonconformity or even gender dysphoria aren’t indications of any one adulthood. We can’t just slap the label trans on a kid who’s differently gendered and assume we know what path that kid should take for the rest of their life. In fact, several studies show that the vast majority of kids who are gender dysphoric in childhood resolve their distress by the end of puberty, and a majority of those grow up to be same-sex attracted.  

Instead of focusing on identity, we should be focusing on the rigid gender stereotypes kids are absorbing every day. Give them the room I had to be masculine or feminine without presuming what it means about their futures. For suggesting these ideas, my own so-called LGBT+ “community” attacks me, tries to silence and intimidate me, accuses me of condemning children to a lifetime of suffering. But that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying it may be hard to live in their bodies, but it’s important that they try, because we don’t know how to forecast the future from their current struggle, but we know it’s important that they learn to navigate and overcome hardship.

Myself, I’m glad for my many years of struggling. Struggle made me strong. Now the struggle is so different. It’s a struggle to tell an inconvenient truth in a world that thinks truth is transphobic. It’s a struggle to keep my business going amid #cancelbuckangel hashtags. It’s a struggle to feel part of a community that would oust a pioneering elder for wrongthink.

I’ve already been through so much, and I can handle it. But I don’t think suppressing knowledge, dissent and discussion is going to create more space for kids struggling today. I think those kids are best served by having time and space to understand themselves, and not rush—or be rushed—to make decisions about who they are going to be.

[texasobserver]

From “I Am a Trans Texan” by April Maria Ortiz in the Texas Observer:

It strikes me, and may strike you, as a bit crazy to come out as transgender in an essay like this. I’m publicly revealing myself to be a member of a marginalized community in the midst of a moral panic targeting our very existence. Ascribe it to my defiant streak, if you will.

If you’re not aware that there is a moral panic about trans lives, then you need to pay attention. As of now, according to the list maintained by activists Alejandra Caraballo, Erin Reed, and Allison Chapman, over 400 bills targeting trans people have been filed with legislatures nationwide this year—more than in the past several years combined. Texas is at the vanguard with about 30 bills and counting. If the frenzy continues, it won’t end there, as former President Donald Trump’s recent speech and Michael Knowles’ rhetoric at CPAC on eradicating transgenderism make clear.

I’m hardly an ideal spokesperson. I’m 43, and I’ve lived my entire life up to this point (with fleeting exceptions) in the gender assigned to me at birth, which is male. Think of my biography as a cautionary tale. It’s painful and messy, and I’m going to tell you some of it. You may find this unpleasant, but I have no other way to say what I need to say. Only bear in mind that my experiences, though common, are not normative. I don’t speak for anyone but myself.

Growing up at the edge of San Antonio’s south side in the 1980s, I learned the usual things about gender and sexuality: Boys are boys and girls are girls and all that. My dad was a biology teacher. I knew the differences. But something seemed to be awry in me for, as far back as I can remember, I felt that I ought to have been a girl, or that in some strange way, I really was a girl, even though everyone treated me as a boy.

Adults policed my gender expression conscientiously, and I inferred that my feelings were unnatural and shameful. Still, I would sit in the pew at church as my parents took communion—we were Catholic—and silently rank which of the women who passed me I would most like to grow up to be. As a small, less-than-masculine child who hated sports, I became the target of bullying once I went to school. But I would lie awake every night, imagining myself becoming a girl—my only refuge from my strange alien existence.

Environmental factors didn’t make me this way. My parents were present and involved; my mother a caring, feminine homemaker and my father, a loud, masculine teacher and artillery officer who was sometimes frustrated by my unmanliness. Expecting me to grow up and marry and follow the same pattern, they enforced the “natural” gender norms they espoused every day of my life. Far from becoming trans through exposure to modern “gender ideology,” I was, simply and naturally, a trans child, even though everything in my upbringing went toward imposing a gender binary that itself represented an unacknowledged ideology. There is no “real me” beneath my transgender self. I have learned to mask it, yes, but if I were somehow to remove it, there would be no me left behind. No more could you remove the flour from a loaf of bread.

As soon as I was old enough to be left home alone, I began secretly wearing my mother’s clothes. Experimenting with femininity launched me into a deep and pervasive calm tinged with a fear of being discovered. After some years, I was found out through a misplaced blouse. I lied my way out of the tribunal that ensued—standing, panicked and alone, before my father and mother. My parents’ eagerness to accept my lies made up for their implausibility. The alternative was believing me to be some kind of queer, which I suppose is what I am.

My junior high coach, a morose sadist who later got fired and went on to a career as a campus cop, compelled boys to shower together in a dimly-lit subterranean cell. A small, undeveloped sixth-grader, I was thrust in there with big, masculine eighth-graders, their eyes ever-roving for some weakling to abuse. My unboyishness and isolation made me easy prey. As a transgender person whose brain was telling me that my body should be female, it’s hard to describe just how traumatic such experiences were. What made them unbearable—to such an extent that I began to self-harm and eventually to plan my own death—was that I had no words or concepts to describe or understand what was going on with me. I was simply a freak of nature, an abomination who had to hide in plain sight, surviving from one morning to the next, hoping that no one would discover my secret, dying a little each day.

You may believe that the problem here was not my being forced into a simplistic gender binary that left me vulnerable to abuse and trauma, but rather my gender dissonance, and that I should have been made to feel at home in my assigned gender. In other words, I should have been coerced into being a normal boy. If you think that, survey the research: It shows, overwhelmingly, that attempts to “convert” gender nonconforming people into traditional gender identities and other forms of rejection are ineffective and traumatizing—in fact, the scientific consensus is that all forms of conversion therapy aimed at altering a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity result in long-term harm—while care that affirms gender identity results almost universally in positive outcomes. It’s also clear that what negative outcomes do occur owe largely to hostile environments.

But since we’re in the middle of a panic about transgender people “invading” sex-segregated spaces, let me add this: Far be it from me to make anyone feel uncomfortable or unsafe, but I have never felt comfortable or safe in any male space. Nor, I believe, would I have felt better in a female space. I prefer privacy for doing such things as defecating and stripping naked, and I find our regime of communal showers and toilets just a little weird and, yes, oppressive. Perhaps that’s one aspect of the problem we should be examining?

There hangs in my parents’ home a circle of my annual school portraits, which show me becoming progressively sadder from year to year. My body was turning into an alien thing with the onset of biological manhood. By the time I graduated, my mounting dysphoria and social problems—I also had an undiagnosed autism disorder—led me to begin planning suicide. In secret, I painted a picture of a girl cutting her wrists. I was the girl, you see. In recurring dreams, I was a young mother. Despair held sway over my waking life.

It was either leave home or die, so I moved across the state for college. My plan was to wait a few weeks and, if nothing changed, to kill myself in a shower stall. Something did change: I found love and acceptance in the woman who became my best friend and then my wife. Several years later, I was still alive, presenting as female in the privacy of our home and as male when I went out. This made me happy. For the first time in my life, I began to approach peace.

It was the turn of the millennium. I was a shelver at the university library, which often left me alone in the stacks at night. Sometimes, I would work in the gender and sexuality section and take down books to try to understand what I was. Many of the books were out of date for that time, and much has changed in our understanding of transgender people since. In them and on the nascent Internet, I encountered terms and categories that didn’t seem to apply to me, reflecting a time when researchers developed theories with little input from the trans community itself. So my gender confusion persisted.

My fragile peace was disturbed when someone to whom we’d entrusted our key entered our home without permission and went through our things. I felt certain that my secret self must have been detected. Mortified and afraid of being outed, I threw all evidence in the dumpster. I grew a beard as a bulwark against “temptation” and began two decades of self-contradiction and mounting desperation, which brings us to today.

“You have to go the way your blood beats,” James Baldwin said in an interview. “If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” Belatedly, I’m coming to grips with this. My attempts to cope with gender dissonance have consumed much of my life, taking hours away from each day, isolating me from loved ones, alienating me from my body, leading to bouts of depression, ideations of suicide, and alcohol abuse. It doesn’t go away. In middle age, I’m forced to recognize that nothing short of being who I am will resolve my profound inner conflict. The word “transition” is terrifying but, however catastrophic the process of coming out may be, I’ll not be much good to those I love if I’m burned out, incapacitated, or dead.

Read more on the Texas Observer.

(🎨 Image by FocalFoto on Flickr)

[junebugwriter]

I'm really struggling a lot today, and a great deal of it is internalized fatphobia.

I've talked on here before that I'm a fat trans woman. Self-acceptance is hard enough when you are trans, but it's even harder for trans fat people I find. All of the media, all of the people I see on social media, all the comics, and all the images of trans people get pushed by the algorithms to revolve around the image of the "waifish twink to trans girl" pipeline. That is about as far from my experience as possible. Add on top of that the primacy of young trans women, people who have known forever that they are trans, and it leaves someone like me feeling completely inadequate.

I've never been thin, or even average weight. The last time I was less than 200 pounds was probably in middle school. I've been fat since I was little, and even when I make the effort to eat right, work out consistently, and make good choices, the lowest I've ever weighed was... 235 pounds. That was my healthiest, when I was 21. I never stopped trying to eat right, never stopped working out for years after. Still, I got fatter and gained weight. Thyroid problems were the real source of it all, sadly. My body's metabolism doesn't work right. I was the most religiously dedicated person at grad school in terms of going to the gym. I was there every day, doing cardio, and lifting weights. It never stopped my weight gain.

Currently, I am over 300 pounds. I'm going to the gym again. I'm trying to eat healthier. I realize that going by weight is not exactly the healthiest way to focus one's attention. I try to self-correct constantly and say that I'd really just rather not die of a heart attack at age 40, and that's the reason I'm exercising.

But God, what I wouldn't give to just be under 300 pounds again.

When every image I see of trans folks is young, skinny, borderline unhealthily thin bodies, it's hard not to take being an old, fat trans woman as a personal failing.

I wish I didn't feel this way. I wish I could say that I'm better than that, that it's stupid to obsess about my image, but at the same time that's the whole problem. That's why I'm transitioning: I want to look more like how I feel on the inside. But what if that's never going to happen for me, realistically?

I also wish that we could broaden the image of what it means to be a trans woman. I wish it was okay to be fat and trans. I wish people wouldn't get so hung up on size and allow people to just be. I wish we found fat people appealing. I wish norms would expand to allow people of any gender or size to simply exist without constant criticism and comparison. Being a fat, disabled trans woman who's older than 35 is a nightmare of "not fitting into the right categories."

I'm grateful for the supportive people in my life. I wish I was as accepting of myself as others were of me.

[bronzetomatoes]

Sorry I would like a second opinion on a personal issue from people who had no involvement in the situation so. Sorta long post ahead

Ermm so there's this girl in my band class. And like at our school that means we've all been in the same class with the same 20-some people for both band and English for 2-3 years now, so we're a pretty close group as far as full high school classes go. But yeah there's this girl I've sorta known in passing the past couple years

When we got to school for the new year in September, this girl (gonna call her Alice, not her real name) had just come out as trans, started growing her hair out, was very skittish and socially awkward. Last year she had a friend group, this year none of them seemed to be talking to her. After chatting with us for a day in October, she asked if she could start hanging out with us at school more often. We all sorta went 👍 ofc you can

We really did not have anything in common, but we could tell she needed friends and like. It's fine, ofc, and our band teacher spoke to us privately about how great it was to see Alice have friends + the impact she could see it having on Alice.

After like a month or two, the early awkwardness and stilted conversations had... not gone away. But like I thought That's okay, being socially awkward isn't a crime, not everyone is good w that shit. We still very much did not have Any common interests, and honestly? We didn't even seem to enjoy each other's company that much, she just sorta hung around us bc she needed friends. We didn't find each other funny either, which sorry if that seems stupid but like thats kind of a big deal for me and my friends

One thing I started to notice was that she seemed... overly familiar? Like she started laying on pretty thick with flirting and sexual jokes in a way that kind of just fell flat. I kinda pinned it as social awkwardness + not taking hints, but my friends and I had known each other for YEARS before we started that shit, not. 3 months. And like it wouldn't have been a problem if Alice would like, stop when we asked her to.

On the one hand, I feel like some of my friends were a little harsh in the way they started icing her out, but on the other hand I had been fighting off a Bad Gut Feeling for months at that point and didn't much feel like going to bat for Alice? But anyway

I missed a lot of lunch hours for extracurriculars, which is when most of this shit goes down, so apparently Alice had kept on full sending it w the heavy flirting and sexual comments. Literally asked one of the more reserved guys if he was circumcised out of fucking no where. Asked one guy out, found out he had a gf, immediately moved onto another guy. Asked someone if his friend was single, guy said "no, but I don't think he's looking for anything rn," Alice replied "lmk if he gets better," kept making weird ass fucking jokes (including an incest joke about her REAL LIFE LITTLE BROTHER) until it was just like. This shit has gotta stop

And THEN. Alice's old friends told us that the reason they all fucking dropped her was bc she a) wouldn't quit it w invasive questions abt their sex lives (non-existent) (we're in high school band get real), b) went to someone's house to hang out and READ THEIR DIARY. And c) wrote. self-insert porn about herself and one of their friends and then showed it to them. ANYWAYYYYY we had had ENOUGHH but I feel really bad bc she really and truly got dropped by like 20 people all at once. And like some of us had a free period together so it was like we had been chatting for an hour a day from October to February and we all kinda just dropped her. But on the other hand what the actual fuck

And the thing is, we did give her a chance to apologize. We explained everything that had been making us uncomfortable and asked her to stop, and rather than, idk, deciding to stop hitting on all our friends, she tried to explain why she should be allowed to do it 😭😭 and like at that point I couldn't keep giving her the benefit of the doubt. It ain't misreading social cues if you're being told directly and you refuse to change your behaviour

This all went down like a couple weeks ago but I had to get it off my chest. Don't blame the band teacher or anything her heart is always in the right place but WOO BOY was it misguided 💀

[travosti]

It’s not easy for some queer/lgbt+ people to be able to go out and live the queer experience in person but what needs to be clear is that external queer spaces vs internal queer places are two different experiences inside our community, and those who live not having online discourse on Twitter or Tumblr over who’s more valid or what’s correct to identify as, most of the time, don’t care. I was so chronically online years ago that I got into silly debates that in the end never existed in real life situations. I ended up having constant hiatuses on Tumblr or Facebook because of how mentally draining it was to be fighting for situations that most of the time do not happen in person. Then I realized that there’s situations that needed more visibility of.

For instance, did you know trans masculine people in latin america have a higher chance of committing suicide before their 30s? One of the examples would be of a black Brazilian trans man, Demétrio Campos, was an activist who committed suicide on May 16th of 2020, because of social injustice towards the lack of opportunities he had from being black and transgender, many times also denying mental health services towards his well being.

Did you know that Argentina is the only country in the continent that has won the legalization to having a non binary ID? Being the first country to legalize this in all of LATAM.

Did you know that just a few months ago, a trans man named Estéfano González , was wrongfully sent to jail because he defended himself from being murdered in the streets with his girlfriend while the attacker kept shouting transphobic AND lesbophobic comments towards him even though he does not identify as lesbian?

Did you know there is no law in Chile that protects trans people who have the right to labor?

Did you know that Tehuel de la Torre, a trans masc in Argentina, was forcefully disappeared after he went to a job interview in 2021, and to this day the police hasn’t done proper investigations and closed the case saying he passed away when there is no body to be found?

And in another occasion, a few years ago another trans masc (Santiago Cancinos), again, in Argentina, was made to be off the radar, the police not helping this trans male whatsoever, just to find out approx 4 years later that the remaining parts of his body was found deep in a hole just a few meters away from his home?

Two Peruvian trans men went to celebrate their honey moon In Bali this year, both were detained by security airport, because of “supposedly having illegal substances in their luggages”. They were brutally beat up in their cells, to the point one of them died because of the attacks. Leaving the newly wed male, becoming a widowed individual in just short time.

This is what’s happening in Latin America towards trans mascs and men but the internet is so focused in the experiences of trans mascs in countries like the USA, or countries that are in Europe. The trans experience, in this case trans masc experience, is NOT the same in every country. As a trans masc living in Chile, it’s very frustrating to see that many comrades typing from their homes, in a first world country, dare to criticize our experiences saying that our privilege is the same as theirs. I invite you to acknowledge our pain and re-think that not everything is centered around countries that is socially looked as more important than others. Please take your time translating the articles I cited, because my job informing is sufficient. I’m not debating with someone that invalidates trans experiences from my continent. Thank you, and you’re welcome from your angry sudaca.

The suicide of Demétrio Campos (Brasil): https://www.hypeness.com.br/2020/06/mae-de-demetrio-campos-fala-como-a-alegria-de-viver-do-filho-foi-abreviada-pelo-racismo-e-transfobia/

Legalization of the non binary identification in Argentina: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/22/argentina-recognizes-non-binary-identities

The wrongful incarceration of Estéfano González (Chile):

https://www.eldesconcierto.cl/reportajes/2022/06/27/el-caso-de-estefano-el-joven-trans-encarcelado-por-homicidio-y-que-clama-legitima-defensa.html/amp/

No law that protects trans people from working in private establishments in Chile: https://www.latercera.com/paula/inclusion-laboral-trans-una-deuda-pendiente/?outputType=amp

The disappearance of Tehuel de la Torre (Argentina): https://agenciapresentes.org/2022/02/11/donde-esta-tehuel-a-11-meses-de-su-desaparicion-las-organizaciones-reclaman-justicia/

The disappearance of Santiago Cancinos (Argentina):

https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/policiales/2021/07/01/que-revelaron-las-pericias-al-cuerpo-de-santiago-cancinos-el-adolescente-trans-desaparecido-hace-4-anos-en-salta/?outputType=amp-type

The murder of Rodrigo Ventocilla and mourning husband, Sebastián Marallano (Perú): https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-62683218

[tanadrin]

I consider myself bi but selected the poll result for lowered sexual attraction if the person had different genitals that what I expected. I'm assuming here that "sexual attraction" includes an actual desire/plan to fuck. If there wasn't any intent to *have sex* then I wouldn't find that person less physically or aesthetically hot. For me these two aren't always the same. Primarily the reason I went with that result is that at this time in my life I'm already partnered up with a couple of people I really enjoy having sex with, though I have a few sexual proclivities I don't share with said partners, so when I'm talking with people I'd wanna get into a sexual expirience/relationship with, I've got a few kinks/dynamics/configurations on my bucket list that I'm actively pursuing, (where genital configuration is relevent to those desires) and to be honest, prioritizing based on limited time and energy. I think my answer would be different if I wasn't currently partnered, or had endless time and energy, or felt like all my niches were fulfilled and was just purely dating/hooking up for the novelty of fucking new people (which I do also enjoy but again, finite resources). But, lately, I've mostly been using apps to meet people so usually it's pretty easy to figure out quickly if we're compatible sexually.

The real sexual hang up I do have is that at this point, I have pretty much written off other trans men/afab trans people as potential sexual partners, because of my dysphoria (though I have had great sexual partners in the past who were trans men, this is a thing that developed for me a few years ago and I don't actually expect it to be a long-term/identifying peice of my sexuality, it's just what's happening right now). So if I found out after chatting with a guy that he was trans masc (and I kind of don't care about his surg status/actual genital configuration! it's much more about the weird comparison games I can get into that are substantial boner-killers), I think I'd politely decline to take it further at that point.

Also given the amount of responses you're getting from trans people who previously considered themselves asexual or on the ace spectrum before transitioning/hrt, I find it pretty funny that I haven't run into many people with that expirience irl! I always thought it made sense given that sexuality and gender seem to have a lot to do with each other for a lot of people (I certainly thought I was ace until at least a year or two on T), though I doubt that's innate we live in a society that puts a lot of weight on the interconnectedness of those two.

Anyway don't know if that explains my answer much or just adds to the soup, but I'm digging all the responses.

I'm assuming here that "sexual attraction" includes an actual desire/plan to fuck.

Interesting. I assume that when people talk about "sexual attraction" they explicitly do not mean "an actual desire/plan to fuck." Attraction usually precedes such desire, and can exist even when no follow through is possible or wanted: monogamously paired people, for instance, experience attraction to people who are not their partners all the time.

I know for some people (e.g., many demisexuals) the two might be much more causally connected, but for people like me--i.e., who are pretty horny and have a pretty intense visceral experience of sexual attraction to lots of different people--the two can be quite unconnected. I'm attracted to loads of people I neither could nor would actually have sex with!

[murkymaid]

Hey! Today's a pretty important day to me as it's the 3rd anniversary of me publicly coming out as trans/genderfluid. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal to a lot of people, aside from being trans the only real qualifier for something like this is just existing for a while, but that's why this is so important to me.

I vividly remember the day i came out, the 31st of january 2021, as being one of the most nerve wracking days of my entire life. I was terrified of how people i knew saw me, how people i didn't know would treat me if they found out, how i was even going to live my life the way i wanted. It was a lot of stuff on 15 year old me's mind, even ignoring the numerous other mental problems i had at the time, and the fact that i'm here right now shows that i made it at least in one regard. I wasn't even expecting to make it a year after i came out, let alone 3!

I'm a ways away from who i intend to be and how i intend to live but comparing the me writing this to the original me that was terrified to bring up these feelings at all, fae would've been ecstatic to see me in the position i'm in now. fae would've thought it was rad that i made friends that were trans too, that i finally settled on a name i loved (after close to 2 years of deliberation), that people in real life are starting to recognize me for who i am and not what other people said i was, just who i am now would've awestruck me back then.

The road to who i am has been tough and long, that the road that i'm on is only gonna get tougher and longer from here, but when i think back to who i was and and think forward to who i want to be, it makes it all worth it. Thanks for reading all this, stay safe <3

[dovesndecay]

you can identify as queer and it can still also be a slur like these two things can be true. it is not ahistorical to say it's a slur when I've literally witnessed it being used as a slur. you have clearly never lived in the bible belt where people say 'those dirty queers'

The first time I remember hearing the word "queer," I couldn't have been more than a couple years old. Maybe 3 or 4. It was on the television.

"We're here, we're queer; get used to it." echoed through the room.

Now, I couldn't tell you which adults of my childhood were around me. I couldn't tell you the specifics of their conversation. But I remember the ... very specific flavor of condemnation that hummed behind every word they said.

I spent the majority of my life, with brief sojourns to other states, in a town of less than 15,000 in the toe of Louisiana. We had more churches than grocery stores or schools.

The unique sound of Southern Disapproval is one very familiar to me.

I was lucky -- mom's bi, too, and dad's an ally. But their support, even before I knew for myself that I needed it, didn't shield me from the queerphobia in others.

I never came out to my very southern grandmother. Maybe she knew, maybe she didn't. I stopped hiding it as much after I moved from Louisiana to Mississippi, and then to Florida, feeling more comfortable exploring my gender away from my family and our culture.

The reason I never came out to her was because every time I thought about maybe telling her, "I'm bisexual. I'm nonbinary. I might be some kind of aspec but we're not dealing with that right now" I would remember.

Midday at her kitchen table, in the house I spent most of my adolescence, where she let me play with bread dough and made me chocolate milk, and smoked her cigarettes. My back is to the tv, my focus on the task of rolling dough in my hands -- oh, stimming even back then -- and I am frozen by her furious exclamation, "Ugh, disgustin'. Gay men are one thing, but lesbians, I just don't fucking understand that nasty shit."

I grew up hearing that [relative] "dresses like a bull dyke." Disapproval. Judgemental. Found wanting.

I grew up learning that trans people were jokes or fantasies, but never real people.

The first time I heard the word queer, it was a battlecry.

It was a statement of existence, and a refusal to keep dying silent.

All of our words are slurs, and I get to choose which ones I reclaim for myself.

[atticmonsterstream]

TL:DR Life has always been kinda terrible and for the first time ever, it's not and I am happy.

[TW in post, Talk of Suicide/Self Harm]

I'm not really sure why I am sharing this now, or what has compelled me to share this story, but I feel like it might make somebody smile, and even if this post is a bit of a thread, I always see people share negative or sad posts (Especially on Twitter) and I kinda wanna change that a little.

I grew up as a really sad kid, like I was full on depressed most of my entire life, I'd spend nights just randomly crying or just being miserable, stuck in my own head and thoughts all of the time, all the way until I was a teeneger, where I hit the lowest point of my life. I hit that rock bottom where you start to have thoughts that nobody ever should, and even acted on them a few times, and luckily survived, but always felt worse for it, until I found an escape online, and because of escapism, started to be somebody (Or something) else online. That's how AtticMonster came to be. It started with Second Life, and eventually became my entire presence online, a dumb black and green lizard and a way to not be myself anymore, and in the time that I have been Attic, I have discovered so much about myself by finding out what 'Attic' liked.

I didn't like men, of course not, cause that would be gay right? But Attic? He was free to do what he wanted, who could judge somebody that didn't exist. Wearing women's clothes? What am I trans? Don't be stupid. But Attic? He isnt even real, so it didn't matter what he wore. I know now that those things don't matter, but young me thought I'd be crucified for it. For so long I closed off my life to everything I felt about myself and split myself in two because I have always feared not being accepted, and had always played it safe, I was a bit of a shitty person in real life because I was playing the character of me, or what I perceived as me, and online I was who I wanted to be but felt like I couldn't be. Because of this, I let real me kind of fall to the side. I got in debt, I got fat, I didn't look after myself and left a huge mess for me to fix later Because I didn't plan on there being a later, and maybe escaped online a little too hard, but in the last few years, I've finally realised that online me and real me are the same person, of course. Part of obviously always knew this, and realising that I could be who I was online, but in person, really changed my life for the better. I learned about being non-binary from an old friend and Steven Universe, and so I became they/them and am infinitely more comfortable with it. I learned how to talk to people, to make friends, to rely on people because of the furry community, and for the first time I felt like I wasn't alone. I learned how to take charge of my life seeing so many friends fight battles so much vaster than my own, friends going through trans journeys, friends with abusive partners, people losing partners, people losing everything, and what was my problem? I don't even know anymore, I was just sad.

Fast forwards a few years to now, and I finally think I've managed to work things out. I have a great job, and I've paid off over half of all the debt I got myself into (and trust me, the number was sickeningly high, you don't wanna know).

I am more myself than ever, I am non binary, I am fucking weird, and I'm proud of it. I absolutely LOVE streaming, and I work hard every day to make it better and better, because there's nothing I'd love to do more focus all my time and energy into it (Curse you Bezoz for not paying us more!) But I think the most important thing is, for the first time in a long time:

I am happy.

[bingejesus]

how do you reconcile your gender and sexuality with your christianity? i've been struggling immensely with this because i don't know how to deal with myself. i have been out for years and it feels so hard to give up either part of myself, and i don't think i can exist as both. please don't answer this if you feel uncomfortable, but how do you do it?

So sorry I’m just now getting to this, friend. I hope you’re well.

So, it took a while to get where I am. I had always been attracted to both boys and girls, and only discovered my gender recently (and am still discovering) but I’ve struggled with God for pretty much the whole time I’ve been on this earth. Not just with my sexuality and such but with everything. For the first 18-20 years of my life I grew up convinced God actually hated me and couldn’t wait for me to slip up so bad that he could send me to hell.

Then after some time in college, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t straight, and I wasn’t cis. And that only pushed me farther because of course according to my background that was a grievous sin. And for a while I hated God because I couldn’t reconcile this idea of non-straight, non-cis, non-Christian people being completely evil with reality. I started really reading and studying and searching and ultimately found that what I’d been taught wasn’t the whole story. I found stuff like the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not “being gay”, it was exploitation and mistreatment of the poor. I found credible sources explaining that the cultural difference between then and now was extremely wide and what we would call homosexuality wasn’t about love and orientation, it was about once again power and exploitation. And when I finally came back to God, expecting anger and judgement, I instead received joy and love and peace. I thought for sure he would tell me I had to be straight and cis because that’s all there was—but actually he was strangely silent. But he answered through knowing and meeting real people, recognizing harmful patterns in society, and through the realization that God was so concerned with reconciling and loving the least of these that he didn’t care if I liked both boys and girls and if I wanted to use they/them pronouns because it made me feel better in my own skin. (“Didn’t care” meaning it was never condemned, not that he was indifferent.) He made gay people gay and trans people trans, and he made the spectrums of sexuality and gender and we were discovering that now and how grand and vivid and weird and creative his creation is. God isn’t in a box, and he does unexpected things.

Basically when asked how he felt about my sexuality and gender, his response was—

“I love you. And I want you to love others.”

It’s still hard sometimes. There are many things I’m unlearning. But the condemnation I feel never comes from him.

So, I say all that to hopefully encourage you. Our paths may be different and maybe God speaks to you in a different way than he has to me, but there’s one thing he will always be consistent on and that is his unconditional love for you. You’re gay and he loves you.

I don’t believe this means he may not call you to singleness—He calls both straight and gay people to that sometimes. Not because it’s wrong to be in a relationship but because there are other plans he has. (This may not be your struggle, but I thought it might be a good example)

The only part of yourself that he asks you to give up is the part that chooses fear instead of love.

You’re so beloved, my friend. And only you can know what God is saying to your heart, but I know for a fact it will always be with love. So, while you’re figuring out how to be both authentically, cast all those cares on him because he cares for you.

I hope you found encouragement in this. May God bless you and keep you, and make his face shine upon you, my friend. ❤️

[pixeljade]

That reddit post about Jessie has me thinking about how much coming out changed my own life. (cw: suicidal thoughts)

Its now around 8 years since I first came out, and 7 since I started transition. Before that, I was constantly afraid. Zero self-confidence, hiding in a hoodie, dreading every social interaction and wanting to go back home so I could distract myself from reality. Hell, I'll even admit, the first half of my 20's was fully wasted because existing as a man felt so excruciating. I was convinced for much of it that it was only a matter of time til I ended it all, giving up on life entirely.

But then I read two comics which changed my life, Wandering Son by Takako Shimura and Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques. Each one I found myself weeping uncontrollably. I had thought about being a girl since I was 6. But until those, it always felt unattainable...like trans folks werent real, but some kind of fake human. Those comics made it real, made it possible.

I came out. After that, everything changed...I learned that I was an extrovert, but could never see it because it was buried under all the anxiety. I learned what confidence and self-esteem felt like, truly, for the first time in my life. I fell in love with life itself. Nothing ever felt the same again.

And this last two years? I feel like my life is coming together. I drove across the country by myself, got a great job with people I care about (and got promoted in that job), got my comics into awards shows, even a museum bought one! People tell me how confident I come across, and often say they could never be like that (a sentiment i shut down each time, everyone can be confident if they put in the work to feel comfortable in their own self!), and just...none of this would have been possible without coming out. I'd still be wallowing in depression, spending more time playing pretend in World of Warcraft than living an actual life. Being trans didnt just change my life, it SAVED it!