#trans or intersex or just gnc people are always hurt by the hatred of one or the other gender

[artificial-ascension]

I saw someone talking about the hatred towards bi lesbians and in the tags they mentioned that bi gay men aren't given near the amount of hatred and I think that boils down to two thing:

1. Women aren't allowed to do anything, as an ex teen age girl I can confirm that no matter what you do as a women you will be judged (ex. Girls who like traditionally girly things are all judged as boring and basic and girls who don't are seen as "not like other girls" and "vying for male attention.)

And 2

Femininity it upheld as the golden standard of purity in alot of circles and therefore being a lesbian also attracted to men is seen as somehow 'tainting' the purity of being a lesbian by likeing icky icky men while on the other hand being a bi gay man would be viewed as the opposite, making up for liking men by being also attracted to good pure women.

And obviously not the case always and not all circles hold up the flawed belief that anything associated with men or masculinity is evil, but I think it's good food for thought and it all boils down to a mix of misogyny and man hating.

[sapphic-sex-ed]

Im worried that im ugly in comparison to other women, and that these thoughts hold me back from relationships. Ive dated women before, and when we kiss, i always get caught up in thoughts of how ugly i am in comparison and it takes away from the moment. I feel like im deceiving them, and also that i can't trust them that they like me.

I understand exactly what you’re going through. As a fat trans girl I’ve dealt with this for years. My self-esteem, self-worth, self-respect, and self-image are or have been all well below zero.

A stranger online telling you that you are beautiful is not really helpful. It makes your self-hatred worse, if anything, so I won’t do that. You would smirk a bit and scoff. You’d think “They wouldn’t say that if they knew what I looked like.” or “I knew it. They are lying to make me feel better.”. Seem familiar? You know, I’m sure, that no one who isn’t a bully will call you ugly to your face. Dealing with this problem you’ve likely asked a lot of people if they really like you, are attracted to you, find you pretty, etcetera and gotten the same kinds of responses honest or not.

Of course you can always change how you look. That seems to be approximately 99.9999% of “beauty advice”. The other 0.0001% of advice is to rock your ugliness. While spite is my Favorite Thing with which to fuel oneself, it’s not so easy to just stop caring about beauty standards (especially if the majority of your thinking goes into how much you wish you were pretty like all the cis girls oops). The western world is obsessed with enforcing their eurocentric cis abled white beauty standards, and even if you manage to overcome them (no small feat) you will be bombarded with them every day and need to fight back.

There are a few ways to go about starting that process.

There’s the “fake it til you make it” method where you act like you have the confidence in your appearance you imagine the people you wish you looked like have. The advantage of that is you might actually believe it eventually, but it has the drawback of being unreliable, not to mention it might make you feel fake or hollow.

Since you’re sapphic you can do the “damn it all I’ll be Butch” method. Queer people of all stripes have the wonderful tradition of intentionally breaking the beauty standard walls. I’ve never met a sapphic person who doesn’t love butchy girls. Achillean people have their whole ‘masc 4 masc’ and ‘no fems’ stuff but that’s from toxic masculinity and they love flaming guys secretly. Essentially, being ugly by mainstream standards is gay culture. Of course I’m not saying all Butch girls are butchy because of self-esteem issues. Butches are some of the most self-confident people you’ll meet, but if you’ve been looking for a reason to try and find out if being butch works for you, then there you go.

The “positivity and education” method is the route I went. The idea is to learn about how beauty standards are created and enforced, what drives them, who controls them and how, their histories, the impacts of colonialism and other broad sociological movements, and to surround yourself with the glorification of whatever you hate about yourself. For example I have a lot of facial hair dysphoria, so I went about learning why it’s so unacceptable for women to have it and put together an archive of around a bajillion images of beautiful cis, trans, intersex, and GNC feminine people (women or not) with hair on their faces (a special thank you to Jeffrey Marsh). If you have an analytical mind, enjoy a tall glass of spite, or like to collect things, I recommend this method.

When you next have a partner if you’re interested in doing that again, you should practice trust and honesty with them. It can be hard to believe that your partner is attracted to you, but being able trust that they wouldn’t hurt or lie to you is a big help.

There is no easy way to overcome this. The world is built to prevent you from doing so and it takes work and dedication. It’s a worthwhile accomplishment though and something that will change your life for the better forever. Even if you can’t get all the way there, any progress will help you.

-*Mod Star*