#this is mostly ripped from my diss draft notes so its messy but. the gist of it

[ryegarden]

ID: a reply from @perfectlyripeclementine that reads "Please say more about dandelions being transgender??" End ID

Great question!!!! I'm literally going to write my dissertation on this topic (transbotanism, as well as transangelicism and transentomology).

Dandelions are trans in a few ways.

They're pretty hardy. You can rip up as many as you want and they'll pop up over and over again. The garden in front of my flat gets mown pretty frequently in the summer, and dandelions are always shooting back up within the week. No amount of hypervigilance, weed killer, trimming, pulling, and tearing up of them will ever stop them growing through cracks in the pavement. They're not going anywhere - you can kill one, you can kill a few, but they -- we -- can't be eradicated. Am I talking about dandelions or trans people now?

Dandelions are also, despite their wider reputation as a nasty rotten weed, extremely beneficial to ecosystems. They have deep taproots that pull nutrients up and fertilize dead soil, and those same roots, being widespread and sturdy, disturb and loosen hard-packed earth (the kind you find on golf courses) and reduce soil erosion. As well as their benefits to the earth, they also have medicinal value - they're a natural diuretic, and every part of the plant is edible and absurdly rich in vitamins.

If rigid, binary notions of gender are a neatly trimmed lawn, trans people are the dandelions bursting through the earth - our liberation aids and works alongside that of others (intersectionality forever!!). The deconstruction of society's notion of binary gender also furthers feminism (deconstruction of misogynistic gender roles), wider queer activism (intrinsically linked in more ways than I can explain), and anti-racism (aids in deconstruction of white colonialist binary gender ideology) - freedom of gender expression is vital to all of us. The full and total liberation of trans people, yes, liberates trans people, and it would also let cishet men wear earrings without being called fruity, you know?

The same parallels exist in people who keep trimmed lawns and transphobes - this desperate cling to Order and Uniformity and Ridigness that will inevitably be fruitless. Constant enforcement of a level of uniformity and monotony that is ultimately harmful, and doesn't even look very nice. A comfort to the rest of us that, once they stop caring, or die, we can thrive.

Also, on a visual level, dandelions go through a very intense... transition. From bright yellow flower to fluffy white seed blossoms. And if you step on them, it spreads them further. Seems pretty trans to me!!

be like the dandelion!! unkillable! joyous!! inherently transsexual in ways others cannot fully understand!

on my redbubble!