#the woman I was not born to be

[androgynealienfemme]

"San Francisco opened a dramatic new life chapter. I was still stuck with someone else's concept of gender-appropriate behavior, but the conventional path I'd been folllowing had suddenly made a sharp turn to the left. I was a drag queen. Correction! I was a celebrated, union-carded, female impersonating entertainer. I didn't like thinking of myself as a drag queen.

Drag queens have always gotten a bum rap. Always. Men in women's clothing create a sensation, and their detractors live on both sides of society's sexual barbed wire. Nowadays, possibly the most damning rap against drag comes from inside the gay and lesbian neighborhood- the very community that Stonewall helped create.

On Friday, June 27, 1969, Greenwich Village drag queens ignited the Gay Liberation movement when they united at the Stonewall Inn, stood their ground against New York City's police, and kicked law-enforcement ass with sequined pumps. Shortly after those first angry steps toward homosexual liberation, drag became the gay stigma. Many male homosexuals, terrified that mainstream society would believe all gay men wore dresses, began to shun the more outrageous drag members of the community. Many lesbians were equally repulsed by drag, feeling that what had once been considered chic now made a travesty of womankind. Acceptance in the homosexual community was soon measured by the degree to which its citizens met a heterosexual standard. I didn't realize it then, but I was as prejudiced as those against whom I railed. I used beauty as my yardstick. It was inconceivable to me that nonbeauties of ambiguous gender might also be "real women." I blushingly admit to having been so shallow. It is unfortunate that marginalized members of society often fight one another for any available crumb of acceptance. No one wants to live at the bottom of the social barrel."

“The Woman I Was Not Born To Be” by Aleshia Brevard (2001)

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

The Woman I Was Not Born to be by Aleshia Brevard

goodreads

Told with humor and flair, this is the autobiography of one transsexual's wild ride from boyhood in rural Tennessee to voluptuous female entertainer in Hollywood. Aleshia Brevard, as she is now known, underwent transitional surgery in Los Angeles in 1962, one of the first such operations in the United States. (The famous sexual surgery pioneer Harry Benjamin himself broke the news to Brevard's parents.) Under the stage name Lee Shaw, Brevard worked as a drag queen at Finocchio's, a San Francisco club, doing Marilyn Monroe impersonations. (Like Marilyn, she sought romance all the time and had a string of entanglements with men.) Later, she worked as a stripper in Reno and as a Playboy Bunny at the Sunset Strip hutch. After playing opposite Don Knotts in the movie The Love God , Brevard appeared in other films and broke into TV as a regular on the Red Skelton Show. She created the role of Tex on the daytime soap opera One Life To Live . As a woman, Brevard returned to teach theater at East Tennessee State, the same university she had attended as a boy. This memoir is a rare pre-Women's Movement account of coming to terms with gender identity. Brevard writes frankly about the degree to which she organized her life around pleasing men, and how absurd it all seems to her now.

Mod opinion: I haven't heard of this memoir before, but I am intruiged by the exploration of the intersection of trans indentity and feminism.

[pwuppy20]

praying for a possessive dilf who's only nice to me who's tall and has nice veiny hands and who handles my attitude with their words

[uncanny-tranny]

I don't care if somebody was "born a man" or "born a woman"

We were fucking born as babies, I frankly don't care what you were "born to be," so long as you are happy in the here and now. That's what matters more, not this bioessentialist "you're born this way, and nothing you do or say matters more than how you were born"

[thesmokinpossum]

If My Body Could Speak, Blythe Baird | The Godfather, Mario Puzo | My Father's House, Sylvia Fraser | To The Daughter Who Secretly Longs For Her Mother’s Affection, Lynne Shako | Storms from Jupiter, Wanda Deglane | DO NOT REPLY, @filmnoirsbian

[pearlsdiamondsandvodka]

the sandra lynn / fig conversation is driving me Insane. fig saying that sometimes she doesn’t wanna exist as herself at all…not wanting to ask her friends how they see her (because she’s afraid to hear their response) saying that to someone she is a monster and she Cannot stop thinking about it. sandra lynn starting the conversation saying she needs to step up but is also simultaneously taken aback about what fig expresses and doesn’t know how to responds to it and suggests getting ice cream. sandra lynn saying “convincing people they deserve good things is really tough” talking about herself but how it also reflects fig. insane!!

[girlblogger14]

[savorycannoli]

Can I talk about sugar for a second? Like all of the berzatto children are tragic and doomed by the narrative in their own right, but nat’s story means so such to me idk if I can even fully talk about it all. We see her relationship with her mom is strained at best, it seems like she’s the least favorite child, maybe BECAUSE of her existence as a woman.

And then we find out that her lifelong nickname is based off of a childhood mistake, her being overeager to help her family literally turned into a lifelong reminder of her fuck up. Is there anything more tragic?? A child wanting love but getting scorn?? And then it makes the flashback scene where she tries to add raisins in season 1 all the more upsetting because why did she add them?

“That’s how mom makes it.” she’s the only one that still follows their mom’s recipe. The reason? Could be anything. But I have no doubt in my mind if she DIDN’T add the raisins if Donna had been around she would’ve been ridiculed even more.

I have such a soft spot in my heart for girls and their complex relationships with their moms and motherhood, and it makes her scene with cicero in the car that much more impactful. When cicero says he would let his kids make more mistakes and not been as careful, i almost started crying. Nat has a nickname from her mistakes and it seems like in her mom’s eyes she’s nothing but mistakes. And then her uncle tells her that she’ll be a good mother and that it’s okay for kids to make mistakes, great, even.

I’m so happy nat is in a place where she’s happy and supported. She has a husband who deeply understands her family and doesn’t judge her for it, even making an effort to try and include Donna. I was kind of meh about pete before season 2, but it solidified for me that he’s so so good for nat and a great character. He is so excited to be a dad, he’s patient and kind with her and her family, and he doesn’t call her sugar.

She’s nat. And she’s allowed to make mistakes.

[sharontate444]

blasting lana unreleased in the back ground too

[stuckinapril]

Just a girl who wants to be her mother’s daughter in the ways that matter

[lazycranberrydoodles]

diversity win! your doomed greek tragedy ship is genderfluid!

[androgynealienfemme]

"Legally, at that time, one was required to wear at least three-gender appropriate articles of clothing. Otherwise you were subject to arrest. Few heterosexuals were aware of the law. The archaic ruling was of major consequence only for the queens of the queer community. For my late-night forays, I generally wore two socks and a silky, if male, tank top under my very feminine slacks and top.

My outer garments had for years been very non-gender specific: velvet tops over stovepipe-cut slacks; oversized shirts over tight, tight jeans. I did not, however, hit the streets in cute little skirts and cashmere sweaters. I was conscious of the dress code and the fact that I was known to every cop on our block.

The city's finest were often found kibitzing with the owners at the club. In the years leading up to San Francisco's "gay-ola" scandal of the early 1960s, it was common practice for the owners of gay clubs to "grease" the legal system. Financial consideration in the right blue pockets allowed talented "fairies" to work and play without constant police harassment. The cops on Broadway knew who I was, and I knew them for what they were. Like everyone familiar with gay life, I carried a healthy fear of our law-enforcement officials. I played by the rules and only slightly bent the dictate that you arrive and exit the club... male.

"I know you think you're real, Girl," Stormy would fret, "But you're still almost six feet tall and bear a striking resemblance to that popular drag queen Lee Shaw. Don't think you're invisible to the police."

My friend was concerned for my safety, but her primary fear was not of the men with whom I danced at the Street of Paris. She knew how badly I would be treated if picked up by the police. I would be unceremoniously tossed into jail, if not worse."

“The Woman I Was Not Born To Be” by Aleshia Brevard (2001)

[underwhelmingalchemist]

Ruby: I was born in 2004 and-

Me, able to hear the dice in my head rolling for psychic damage: H u h

[lunarrolls]

listen so closely to me i think liliana temult is a fascinating character and she’s really fun to examine morally but also nothing will ever come fucking close catharsis-wise to watching ashton and orym fucking cross examine her ass in episode 92. the sexiest shit i’ve ever seen “your worst fear is probably my worst fear, and i think we just got a little sample (my worst fear came true because you weren’t fast enough, what will you do when it’s her head on the line?)” and “keep wrestling (you must bear the weight of their deaths on your conscience and know it will never be enough for what you took from me)” like holy SHIT you guys

[radishprincesss]

lana at coachella <3

[doctor-disc0]

"Oh, you're trans? Are you mtf, ftm, mtnb, or ftnb?" Actually, I'm ftmtnbtftnbtmtnbtmtftxtnbtmtqtmftnbtmtfnbtmtxtmtmnbtmtnbtmtxtqtnbtmtfmnbtm-

In other words, I'm genderfluid