#trans sports movie

[nerdyqueerr]

How to tell the beautiful older trans woman on my rugby team that she's so incredibly charming and I would die or perhaps proclaim some kind of sonnet for her if she needed me to without making it like. Weird

[queerstuffonscreen]

Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story (2022)

72 min.

Country: USA

Genre: Documentary, Sport, Biography

Language: English

Celebrated skateboarder Leo Baker shares the details of their rise to fame and the clash between their career and self-discovery as a trans person.

Watch on Netflix

[morzowo]

.

[skadi-gemini]

Cope harder about males in skirts not being welcome to invade women's sports. They're not entitled to a sports career just because they say so and stomp their man feet while claiming transphobia. Girl, get a damn grip. How about you transition into someone with a single solitary iota of fucking brain activity.

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let's shake it up a little. Barry! Breakfast is ready! Ooming! Hang on a second. Hello? - Barry? - Adam? - Oan you believe this is happening? - I can't. I'll pick you up. Looking sharp. Use the stairs. Your father paid good money for those. Sorry. I'm excited. Here's the graduate. We're very proud of you, son. A perfect report card, all B's. Very proud. Ma! I got a thing going here. - You got lint on your fuzz. - Ow! That's me! - Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000. - Bye! Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house! - Hey, Adam. - Hey, Barry. - Is that fuzz gel? - A little. Special day, graduation. Never thought I'd make it. Three days grade school, three days high school. Those were awkward. Three days college. I'm glad I took a day and hitchhiked around the hive. You did come back different. - Hi, Barry. - Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good. - Hear about Frankie? - Yeah. - You going to the funeral? - No, I'm not going. Everybody knows, sting someone, you die. Don't waste it on a squirrel. Such a hothead. I guess he could have just gotten out of the way. I love this incorporating an amusement park into our day. That's why we don't need vacations. Boy, quite a bit of pomp... under the circumstances. - Well, Adam, today we are men. - We are! - Bee-men. - Amen! Hallelujah! Students, faculty, distinguished bees, please welcome Dean Buzzwell. Welcome, New Hive Oity graduating class of... ...9:15. That concludes our ceremonies. And begins your career at Honex Industries! Will we pick ourjob today? I heard it's just orientation. Heads up! Here we go. Keep your hands and antennas inside the tram at all times. - Wonder what it'll be like? - A little scary. Welcome to Honex, a division of Honesco and a part of the Hexagon Group. This is it! Wow. Wow. We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life to get to the point where you can work for your whole life. Honey begins when our valiant Pollen Jocks bring the nectar to the hive. Our top-secret formula is automatically color-corrected, scent-adjusted and bubble-contoured into this soothing sweet syrup with its distinctive golden glow you know as... Honey! - That girl was hot. - She's my cousin! - She is? - Yes, we're all cousins. - Right. You're right. - At Honex, we constantly strive to improve every aspect of bee existence. These bees are stress-testing a new helmet technology. - What do you think he makes? - Not enough. Here we have our latest advancement, the Krelman. - What does that do? - Oatches that little strand of honey that hangs after you pour it. Saves us millions. Oan anyone work on the Krelman? Of course. Most bee jobs are small ones. But bees know that every small job, if it's done well, means a lot. But choose carefully because you'll stay in the job you pick for the rest of your life. The same job the rest of your life? I didn't know that. Wh

[shogun-paints]

“Papá, Because,” mixed media painting. No AI.

Watch the full story below 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[delusion-of-negation]

something that was missed by a lot of people, who (because of the HIGH cost) only saw the trailer, was that lady ballers actually had a trans character, who was made to realise they're not a real woman and it doesn't make sense to be trans by... being kicked in their balls. rationalityrules has a daily wire account, because he debunks masses of their content, and it was mentioned in his video but no others (i saw), as everybody else could only watch the trailer. so yeah, film's actually way more transphobic than the "nooo we're just making fun of the sports stuff" façade, in actuality they wanted to make a documentary (akin to what is a woman) about sport, but were declined entry into women's sports without meeting the very strict hormone criteria, and went "hmm instead of a reasonable evaluation of why that is, we shall make comedy movie pretending it isn't". idk man, it's just kinda pathetic all round. apparently it's just like bad dodgeball, like anything good you could get from an approximately $200 cost to watch this film you can get better from dodgeball. or balls of steel. or like all those sports comedies from that era. not saying the "stick it to the man" appeal of a non-hollywood film doesn't have any merit for americans, but idk go to indie film festivals or watch foreign films, because it isn't sticking it to the man, they're also the man bro.

[klingercollection]

She's The Man insanely accurate representation of a trans guy

[rogueddie]

Steddie Fic Recs: Masterlist

💜 Asexual / Aromantic

🧭 Canon Divergence

🖤 Creature Feature

🕓 Different Time

🦻 Disabled Steve / Eddie

💌 Established Relationship

🤞 Fake Dating

📸 Famous AU

👀 Friends With Benefits

👻 Ghosts

🐬 Mermaids / Sirens

📼 Movie AUs

🔞 NSFW P1 : Bottom / Sub Steve

💦 NSFW P2 : Bottom / Sub Eddie

🍌 Scoops Ahoy

😷 Sick Fic

🧵 Soulmates

🩰 Sports

⏳ Time Loop

🎀 Tooth-Rotting Fluff

🥀 Touch Starved

🏳️‍⚧️ Trans

🦇 Vampire Eddie

🩸 Vampire Steve

[toybreaker-kr]

Thinking about a big tiddied dom leaning severely dysphoric pre-op trans boy taking me home after a nice innocent date (m4ftm).

You’ve never hooked up with anyone before, wary of being misgendered. But we’ve had a few dates and I’ve been sweet and respectful, so you invite me to your apartment, affecting confidence you don’t really feel.

We’ll start kissing immediately after we enter your apartment. I’ll crowd you against the wall like in the movies and you’ll think it’s romantic, if a bit corny. I’ll strip you of your clothes and when I reach to pull off your binder you’ll try to protest, try to say something along the lines of “Hey, actually I’d rather keep it on”. But I’m still kissing you whenever I can reach your lips and you let the moment pass, loathe to make it awkward. I told you I was gay, so there’s no way I’ll see your chest as anything other than masculine, right? You try to tug off my clothes but I kneel and moan that I want to suck your cock. You like the way I worded that, so you let me pull your pants and briefs off.

I’m completely clothed and you’re completely naked when I yank the door open and pull you out into the hall.

You freeze for a moment in shock, then try to scramble back into your apartment yelling “what the fuck-”. I grab you from behind and shush you. You don’t want your neighbour to come out and investigate, do you? You really want them to see you like this? Tits and pussy out?

You tremble as I push you closer to your neighbour’s door until you’re practically peering into their peep hole. I lazily hump your bare ass and you can feel my hard on through my jeans. You can’t quite believe this is happening. I grab your fat tit with my left hand and snake a hand between your legs, ignoring your clit to play with that feminine hole you so loathe. My fingers just shy of entering, press just enough to burn a little. Deliberately stretching you out.

“You know,” I say conversationally, “I’m actually straight. It’s hilarious that you thought a gay man will ever want you. Your tits were practically bursting out of that sports bra you call a binder.”

I jiggle your breasts and laugh. “Do your neighbours know you’re a woman pretending to be a man? I mean it’s pretty obvious. I bet they won’t even be surprised if they open this door right now. Not surprised that you have huge udders, just shocked and disgusted by how much of a perverted skank you are.”

With a hushed and shaky voice, you demand to be released. I pull out my cock, rub the length against the underside of your pussy and you freeze again. ‘Absolutely no go zone’, your bio had said. I press a smile against your cheek and amuse myself by smacking your pussy with my cock. I adore how much you hate it. I can’t wait to break you in until you love it.

You’ve changed your tune, quietly begging to stop instead of making demands. Despite everything, you’re getting wet. The slap of my cock against your labia makes it obvious to anyone who might hear. I squeeze your tits affectionately when you start to cry.

I wriggle a finger in your vagina, then two. You act like a bug has crawled up there instead. I reach in as far as I can and feel the brush of your cervix on the tip of my middle finger. “You feel that? That’s the entrance to your womb. A man can just press his cock head flush against this and breed your womb with his cum. Then a fetus will grow inside you until your belly fills with water and gets bloated and heavy with a baby ‘cause that’s what you’re designed to do.”

You try to twist away in revulsion but I press you harder against your neighbour’s door and you have to still to stay quiet. I pull out my fingers and stroke my cock with your cunt slick. I kiss your ear. “I won’t breed you if you do as I say. I don’t particularly want to take care of a baby either, but I’ll have to if you disobey. So for the both of us, you can be a good girl, right?”

You hate yourself as you force yourself to nod. I make you say it. It feels like something in you dies as you whisper against the door, ‘I’ll be a good girl’. Then, you’re biting back a scream as I force my cock inside you.

It’s a tight fit. It feels absolutely wonderful to force myself inside your virgin cunt. With firm presses and sharp jabs. It feels the opposite of wonderful to you. You’re desperately trying to suppress the sobs from the pain and violation. You Can’t be seen like this, you just can’t.

I give you some respite once I’m hilted inside you, taking a moment to luxuriate in your warm tight insides. I pull your hips back with me, walking backwards until you’re arched, hands and forearms braced against the door for support. I pull out a little, then thrust into you, satisfied when your heavy tits swing forward and smack against the door. You gasp and try to cover your tits to reduce the noise but I pinch your ass hard in warning and tell you to resume the position. You swallow down your protests and obey.

For the next ten minutes, I fuck you roughly, the sound of my balls slapping against your thighs are drowned out my the smack smack smack of your tits knocking on your neighbour’s door. There is no way your neighbour hasn’t heard by now. Maybe they’re standing on the other side of the door, shocked and frozen with indecision. Maybe they’re watching through the intercom, guiltily pleasuring themself to the sight of a girl with big fat tits being raped against his front door. Or maybe they haven’t noticed, headphones drowning out all other noise. Maybe they’re not home. You have no idea, and that makes it worse somehow.

My hips stutter as I get closer to coming and you beg for me to pull out. I say I will if you say you’re a girl and beg for me to breed you. You cry. It’s a trap. You know it. I know you know it. But there’s no other option than to try. So you sob ‘I’m a girl’ and you beg. Force yourself to omit the ‘don’t’ as you beg ‘please breed me’.

And I do. I press my cock against your cervix with one last thrust and fill your womb with burst after burst of cum. You didn’t know you’d feel it all. The twitch and pulse of my cock and the hot sticky wetness filling parts of you you wish you never had.

You feel empty when I pull out. In more ways than one. But don’t worry, something else will fill that emptiness soon.

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

DIRK: Let's test something. Describe your gender in a way that'll baffle cis people, but other trans and enby people will get. I'll start.

DIRK: I prefer not to be perceived by others.

ROXY: ooohhh a void w thigh high socks and a beanie

KARKAT: I DUNNO. PICK A SLUR

KANAYA: I Drank Too Much Gender Juice

SOLLUX: ii wii2h ii wa2 an ab2tract concept.

JADE: oobleck!!!! my gender is oobleck

ROSE: I am a grand, old piano. I am painted black, shining and somewhat glossy. Covered in vines holding beautiful, golden flowers, I sit in the middle of a forest; forgotten, yet not lost. A cat sits atop me, staring into the distance with a glare in its tiny, marble eyes. The sun lays itself on top of my base in streaks, like looking through swaying, almost open blinds. I am a grand, old piano.

DAVEPETA: B33 < seven goblins in a trench coat, each with a diffurent hypurrfixation

HAL: David Bowie, as played by Tilda Swinton.

NEPETA: :33 < none gender with left boygirl X33

FEFERI: A s)(apes)(ifting tentacle monster t)(at takes t)(e form of your gay aunt's wife!! 38)

CALLIOPE: if gender is a performance, then mine is the cUrtains which are drawn in to block stagehands switching props and the backdrop.

JANE: I'm a girl in a man way...

DAVE: i dont know what im doing leave me alone

CALIBORN: BOOBY MCBEARDY FACE.

DAVESPRITE: rooster

ERIDAN: im all the genders but also none of the genders and evverything i wwear is drag and evvery crush i havve is gay

EQUIUS: D --> If Gerard Way was a sport bike

TAVROS: wHEN YOU ORDER A MAN FROM wISH,

VRISKA: I'm genderfluid 8ut not in a "sometimes a girl, sometimes a 8oy" way. Sometimes my gender is Wesley from Princess 8ride, a sexy cow8oy, pir8 temptress, greasy gamer entity.

GAMZEE: An OlD vEnDiNg MaChInE tHaT oNlY gIvEs YoU nIcKeLoDeOn SlImE aNd GrApE sOdA :o)

JAKE: I want to be able to see my gender in the forest after weeks of camping and get scared away. Then the next night wander into the forest searching for it again but disappear without a trace. Like those horror movies you watch sometimes you know?

JOHN: i'm a person?

ERISOL: ii think of gender a2 iicky 2tuff that ii dont wwant on me, attached twwo me. that2 another wway of 2ayiin i dont wwant gendered terms twwo define me. iim agender

JASPROSE: No matter who you are, if you have sex with me, it's gay!!

ARADIA: i d0 n0t exist 0u0

TEREZI: BOWL1NG 4LL3Y C4RP3T

[bucktommywinterfest]

Warm-up rounds:

Halloween - October 27-Nov 2: couples costumes and/or magical realism

Thanksgiving - November 24-30: firefam friendsgiving and/or accidental texts

Event Prompts:

December 1-7: first [insert winter holiday/tradition] together and/or clothes sharing

December 8-14: hallmark movies/movie night and/or “I've actually never seen snow before.”

December 15-21: holiday-themed calls/a q-word shift and/or mistletoe kiss

December 22-28: Christmas/Hanukkah and/or firefam holiday party

December 29-January 4: midnight kiss/resolutions and/or early mornings/late nights

January 5-11: holiday/post-holiday blues and/or trans character(s)

January 12-18: enemies to lovers and/or weird weather/stranded 

January 19-25: sports au and/or love confessions

January 26-February 1: different era (80s, 90s, etc.) and/or painted nails/Uncle Tommy

February 2-8: Tommy in the Firefighter calendar and/or buck 1.0 meets closeted Tommy

February 9-15: Valentine’s Day and/or secret(s)

February 16-22: seeing each other on calls and/or time travel/time loop

February 23-March 1: meet cute/meet ugly and/or different jobs

March 2-8: daddy issues/daddy kink and/or dancing in the kitchen

March 9-15: werewolves au and/or polyamory

March 16-22: married in Vegas and/or bucktommy dads/accidental baby acquisition 

March 23-29: bucktommy anniversary

[hallowedmistress]

stardew sexuality hcs!

bachelors + bachelorettes

alex

definitely gay

grew up in a homophobic, religious family

first time he saw gay people was on tv on a news program about same-sex marriage being legalised

george immediately turned it off in disdain and evelyn distracted him with some food, but the thought lingered at the back of his mind

as he grows up, he collects sports magazines. more often with lean, muscular men on the covers than not

he suppresses it for years but it comes to a head when the cute new farmer moves in

and the rest is history

elliott

homoflexible

knew he was into men since he was very young

his family wasn't pleased to say the least. their only son, gay and a writer? the blasphemy.

didn't dare confess to any of his childhood crushes because he grew up in a pretty old fashioned area

instead wrote letters and stuffed them into used cans and threw them into the sea

lived in zuzu city for a short while before moving to stardew valley, had a relatively unhealthy lifestyle of drinking and hookups and no sleep. the cabin on the beach helped with his insomnia

very rarely attracted to women; usually into the type of women who mistake him for a lesbian

sam

unlabelled

leans more towards men

vincent called him weird at first but wrapped his head around it pretty quick

jodi doesn't talk about it but she just wants him to be happy and not hide any part of himself

kent absolutely flips when sam brings the farmer, his boyfriend, over

they make it work. kent warms up to the farmer, and the strict military rules drilled into his head slowly come undone

he reluctantly tells sebastian he likes guys at the saloon one night while abigail isn't around. sebastian just says 'huh', and beats him at pool.

sebastian

queer, on the aromantic spectrum

never really thought about romance. he has enough to deal with by himself, why should he want someone else?

has a little crush on sam when they're kids

only realises it was romantic when sam tells him that he likes guys. and sebastian realises oh, i can do that.

he doesn't really tell anyone but he blurts it out to his mother one afternoon

robin is supportive, and curious at first

demetrius... doesn't say much.

after kissing sam for a dare, he huddles inside a blanket with a red face for a whole day

harvey

heteroflexible

he likes women, but likes the occasional buff man

he's vocal with his support of the community, and pins up a pride flag on the clinic's wall

he lost a trans girlfriend to suicide back in the city. it sticks with him, and he makes sure to respectfully inquire about all his patients' mental health and if they need anything

he likes the farmer for their cool, confident demeanor regardless of their gender.

shane

straight

never thought about his sexuality

kissed a few of his homies back in college before he dropped out

hasn't really "fallen" for anyone before the farmer

abigail

bisexual

this girl is so, so bi

she definitely read manga on sites named stuff like yaoiparadiseheaven growing up

always shipped the protagonist and rival in pokemon games

has a few bi pride pins. pierre hates it and wants her to tone it down, but she refuses. loud and proud

caroline chides her, but is secretly proud of her and even buys her some sapphic movie dvds

haley

lesbian

it's complicated. she knows she has some sort of comphet, and she hates it

she wants to be out to the whole town just to prove a point, but she wants to present as straight at the same time just to feel more accepted

she flirts with guys and then feels like throwing up

she tries to flirt with girls and ends up insulting them

she and abigail have some sort of sapphic jealousy thing going on

when the farmer comes to town, abigail knows she's head-over-heels for the butch immediately despite her previous insistence that she only likes femme women

leah

definitely a lesbian

chill about it. she doesn't tell anyone, but she doesn't hide it

she has a vase painted the lesbian colours

her ex from the city is non-binary

she doesn't expect to fall for the farmer at all, but ends up yearning for months

boldly sculpts a messy piece of two women kissing

she and male!farmer would talk about women together

penny

her labels keep changing

she's into women, and into pretty guys.

she used to always keep an eye out for the woman who worked the jojamart counter

pam catches her reading a lesbian romance once, and penny fears the worst

instead, pam just nods and mentions she went out with some women herself and penny just stops in her tracks wide-eyed

when she first meets the farmer, she can't stop blushing around them

maru

she never really fathomed being attracted to men in the first and doesn't get why demetrius is so against her having male friends

demetrius is obnoxiously supportive once he finds out. the farmer sighs every time they walk in on an overly large display of support

he celebrates her coming-out anniversary every year

lesbian in stem

she's also on the asexual spectrum. something like demisexual, maybe. she doesn't have it figured out yet

emily

pansexual, and open about it

every time someone asks if she has a boyfriend, she corrects them to 'significant other'.

romance doesn't work like 'normal' to her

every friendship has a little romance, and every romance has a lot of friendship. isn't that the best way to live?

she's very affectionate. with friends, family, s/o's, anyone.

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

If you are a movie fan and haven't read the book yet, here are some irrelevant details from the book

Henry owns a cardigan

Arthur and Catherine meet on a Henry V play (which they named Henry after), which Catherine went to see and saw Arthur playing. She "shook off her security to disappear into London and dance all night".

Pez listens to kpop, and he got Alex into it

Nora watches drag race and got Henry into it

Henry is an Elton John fan (actually relevant in the book)

Alex is a Hall & Oates fan

Alex wears glasses (actually relevant in the book)

Henry is described by Alex as having lots of moles

Bea is the rockstar girlfriend, at the end of the book she plays on a concert and everything. She plays the guitar and is always wearing a leather jacket. She also has a fat cat called Mr Wobbles. And the queen wanted her to learn violin “since it was more proper” instead of guitar. “Bea was allowed to learn both, but she went to uni for classical violin.”

During the turkey phonecall, Henry is wearing a peely face mask

Amy is trans and has a pansexual wife

(Actually relevant) Catherine was not off in another country the whole story, just battling intense grief for her husband's death, so she wasn't present in her children's life, so they felt as if they lost both parents.

There's no king, she's actually a queen, her name is Mary and she should die (she's so so much worse on the book than the king is on the movie)

David is a service dog

(Actually relevant in the book) June bought a teen magazine at 15 and 13 year old Alex would sneak into her room to stare at the magazine (and the picture of a blonde 14 year old British prince on it).

Bea is the middle kid, Henry is the youngest

Henry is canonically on therapy and on antidepressants (since the start of the book)

I don't remember if they mentioned it on the movie but Arthur was James Bond and died of pancreatic cancer.

Alex’s favorite Olympic sport is rhythmic gymnastics

Bea had an addiction problem when Henry was about 17 (as a way to cope after their father's death) and only got herself into rehab after Henry went to her and started crying about dad was dead and he was gay and scared so she couldn't kill herself. That's how he came out to her

Alex doesn't wanna be president at the end of the book, he starts law school

Henry favourite star wars is Jedi, Alex's is Empire

June is allergic to peanuts

Alex runs and runs to cope and clear his head

He did not know he was bi until after Henry kissed him. Yes, he had a friend with benefits relationship with his high school friend Liam, but he genuinely thought it was perfectly platonic and straight

Also he doesn't keep on touch with Liam after high school (their friendship just slowly fades away, with living so far and Alex being suddenly famous) but they reconnect at the end

Alex and Henry move in together on a brownstone on Brooklyn, eventually they marry (after Henry abdicates) on the lake house, they move to a farmhouse on Austin, they spend their honeymoon unpacking

Pez is lactose intolerant

Bluebonnet is June’s code name, Barracuda is Alex’s

Henry is a big Austen fan, and makes references to her books through the story

Amy knits

Zahra has a sister who recently had a baby

June forced Alex into dresses as a kid

Henry’s favorite food is a cheap falafel stand ten minutes from the palace

Henry really likes sailing

Shaan has a motorbike

Alex is allergic to dust

Henry keeps a copy of Le Monde, the newspaper from the day they were in Paris, on his room

Alex and Nora dated when Alex was 17 and Nora 18 but realized they were definitely better off as friends. When they are bored, they like to create rumors about their relationship

Alex makes tons of lists to organize

Alex wears chinos, and claims kakhis are for white people

Nora is very good at math

Alex grew up catholic

At the end of their e-mails, Alex and Henry quoted historical lgbt love letters

Nora’s one-bedroom is “full of books and plants she tends to with complex spreadsheets of watering schedules.”

Nora is bisexual and on the aro spectrum (not canon on the book than she’s aro, but Casey did mention it somewhere)

Arthur gifted Henry a telescope for his seventh birthday

The karaoke scene happens not while on Texas but in some club full of queer people. The whole group is there, Pez got them matching kimonos. Alex’s says Hoe Dameron, Henry’s says Prince Buttercup. Aside from Henry singing Don’t Stop Me Now, Bea sings Call Me by Blondie, and Pez sings So Emotional by Whitney Houston in a “shockingly flawless falsetto”.

The lakehouse confessions happens while at night

The Kensington fight (after the lakehouse confession) is much more dramatic, they don’t go to the v&a that night, but the next night. That morning Henry got up early, and brought Alex coffee when he woke up. They made up.

Also Alex takes his coffee with cinnamon

Alex, Nora and Henry are gen z, while June is a millennial

[galactic-marvelettes]

You would think that after all that Brie Larson, Jennifer Lawrence, Daisy Ridley, Kelly Marie Tran and, most recently, Halle Bailey endured, we would’ve learned our lesson. First, you said Rachel wasn’t Latina / Latina enough; then you said she was Latina and therefore she can’t be Snow White.

Y’all spent years criticizing the princesses, – namely Snow White – calling them “weak” and “passive”, saying that young girls shouldn’t aspire to be them and shaming those people that did. Disney heard you and decided “Fine, we’ll give her a more modern update,” and tasked Rachel with playing her.

Now y’all wanna do a complete 180 and want to claim that Snow White is “sacrilege” and was always a beautiful role model. You’re calling on Rachel to quit, calling her ungrateful for her role (nevermind that these photos exists), saying she “ruined the movie” for you, and hoping the movie fails based on an out-of-context 5-second Tiktok clip from a year old video. Disney creatives are the ones who made the decision to portray Snow White this way; Rachel is merely her vessel. What is wrong with y’all?!

Not to mention that y’all have the Audacity™️ to compare her handling of this whole thing to Halle Bailey’s handling of the racist campaigns against her. Rachel doesn’t it to owe to you to handle all of this with grace, by staying quiet and putting on a brave face. This constant barrage of hate and over analyzation of everything she says, does, and thinks is clearly taking a toll on her. (Also, Halle has signaled her support for Rachel, so just try pitting these two against each other again.)

Y’all need to realize that you are bullying a 22 year old for sport and have no shame for it. It’s sickening. I am exhausted from watching female actresses get torn apart on social media, at this point for just existing.

We just had “Barbie” come out – a movie that famously talks about the difficulties of being a woman and how no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work or how hard you try, nothing you do will be ever be enough. Everyone missed the message. I’m disappointed, but shit am I not surprised.

[johannestevans]

The Joy of Trans Creation

On the liberty of making unapologetically transgender art.

Originally published in Prism & Pen.

For me as a child, there was no real transgender representation around me.

Transfeminine characters were exciting when I saw them, even though they were frequently the butt of jokes, highly sexualised, or the targets of violence from the narratives they appeared in. They were never afforded complex character arcs, and I can’t recall any trans women on my screens or on the pages of the books appearing for more than an episode or in small appearance before being killed or disappearing off-screen.

And trans men?

Nothing.

In the British soap series, Waterloo Road, there was a narrative about a trans guy that started when I was a young teenager myself, and it was… difficult. The narrative was clumsy and uninformed about trans experiences. It seemed more about cisgender parents’ anxieties about their trans children and was very conservative in extending liberty or freedom to the trans guy’s life or his body. He was sporty, a football player, and dykey — he was presented almost as if he was transitioning just to play sports.

And the obvious inspiration for this Waterloo Road plot, She’s The Man (2006) was…

Well, that wasn’t much to write home about either. The film is about a girl disguising herself as a boy in order to play soccer. I know that Amanda Bynes, who played the protagonist in She’s The Man, has talked in interviews about experiencing a lot of gender dysphoria whilst in the role, but what better encapsulation of the fact that trans roles were and still are so often played by cis actors who have no business doing so?

I remember watching She’s The Man as a kid and finding a lot of the jokes not very funny. These two trans male narratives, the only ones that I ever saw until I was much older, bore no resemblance to my life, my desires, and my feelings, whatsoever.

They were cisgender heterosexual people’s fantasies of transgender men. One is about a woman “thankfully” going back on her vile trans ways and revealing herself to be sexy and female after playing at being a pathetic and unmasculine man; the other is about an undesirable and lesbianish teenager who is “obviously” transitioning to get around misogyny, more than for any of his internal feelings.

I felt far more gender euphoria — far more excitement, more sense of feeling loved and cared for and genuinely represented and validated — when I saw effortlessly queer and fruity men on my screens. Characters like Hook and Smee in Hook (1991), or Armand and Albert in The Birdcage (1996): two silly, middle-aged men being overdramatic and in love with one another. Or characters like Hollywood Montrose in Mannequin (1987): fashion-focused, catty and, emotional.

Or, hell, even characters like the sexy gay leather bikers in the Blue Oyster Bar in the Police Academy movies — they’re intended as a recurring punchline, but nevertheless portrayed hot hairy men who dance the tango and unapologetically love and desire other men.

I did not feel like or want to be an eternal little boy for being transgender, continuously infantilised and emasculated, treated as if I wasn’t a real man. Moreover, I had no interest in feeling or acting as though manhood or masculinity or men were something I should have been superior to.

I’m a fashionable, pretty gay dude with so many joint problems that going for a jog can put me out of action for days. Narratives about straight trans guys, let alone ultra-sporty ones, couldn’t bear any less resemblance to my life or my desires as a man.

There’s a reason many cisgender people are attracted to these narratives about transmasculinity, and unfortunately, it has nothing to do with truly supporting the trans men who are lesbians, or who are sporty or straight. It has more to do with their feelings about which “women” are best to “allow” to transition, and so much of those feelings are based on their expectations of female attractiveness or desirability within heterosexual society, and never truly afford love or respect to those men.

And men like me?

We’re unthinkable, and thus, invisible.

Times have changed, a little — I do see more trans men on television and in film, bit by bit. I know that in animation particularly, great strides are being made in portraying various trans characters, and we see a much wider variety of trans characters in shows and film.

I do still think that I see far more they/them trans masc types who are often a white monolith with similar butch lesbian stylings, dyed hair, and certain piercings, often as a sort of introduction for cis hetero viewers to the concept of nonbinary identity or the use of they/them pronouns. I know many people like this in real life, nonbinary or trans, and the issue isn’t their physical appearance or the fact that they’re depicted like this — it’s that their characterisations are so often one-note.

I can’t think of seeing a character introduced as nonbinary who appears more transfeminine, or who characters would automatically label as “he” instead of “she” before being corrected to they/them, because nonbinary identity is treated in popular media as a sort of woman-lite; I can think of one gay trans guy who’s in Shameless; I can’t think of many trans men on television at all or in film who are fat, non-white or disabled.

Television and film are still a long way behind the beautiful diversity of real trans experience — but I write books and short stories. I get to create, as a gay trans man, trans men like me, and trans men like my friends, and craft narratives about trans experience that cisgender people would never be able to.

I published my second novel this month. One of the main characters is a transmasc fallen angel with BPD — he’s cold and arrogant, manipulative, cruel, and at the same time, he’s endlessly loving and charismatic, he’s beautiful and savage, he’s radical and believes strongly in his ideas, and in the rights of everybody.

I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams as a child seeing a character like that in any book I read. But many other trans men, trans people, queer people, and readers in general, will be able to pick up my book and connect to that character, see themselves in him, and love him or despise him as they might any other character.

There is no limit as an indie author to the trans characters that I can create, or how many of them I can have. I don’t have to limit myself to having a singular trans man on a cast of cis-hetero characters, his whole person and physicality aligned to the cisgender stereotype of transmasculinity.

I have dozens of trans characters in the universes I create, and many of them are trans men like me, or not: fat trans men, trans men of colour, Jewish trans men, disabled trans men, traumatised trans men. They’re tailors, revolutionaries, students, teachers, historians, archivists, office workers, stablehands, fops, librarians, adventurers, rogues, pirates, sailors, bastards or angels, heroes or villains.

The sheer joy of that reality is striking me regularly at the moment whenever someone leaves a kind or enthusiastic comment on my works or in their reviews. There’s so much joy that people display in reading my short stories or buying my books, and God, the wonder that I feel when I attend conventions or events and people recognise me or recognise my work and enthuse about it to me.

There is no greater compliment to me, no better assurance, no more loving thing to be told or to overhear, than “Finally, I feel seen.”

“He’s just like me!” or “I’ve never felt so represented,” or “Oh, I want to be him. I am him already. I love him.”

It’s lonely to be transgender.

In a society that punishes and penalises any acts of gender transgression or perceived deviation from the norm or expectation, the transgender or nonbinary or otherwise gender-nonconforming person is constantly at risk — and aware of the risk — of ostracisation, of victimisation, of violence, or assault. We go through life aware that we may be attacked or discredited, violently assaulted, denied medical care, treated as unworthy of love, abused, harmed, hurt.

We must fear and be wary of isolation from our friends, our loved ones, and our communities, because society fears us and has been taught it can hate us. Other people, those that we love, that we care about, forging those connections and keeping them strong, they are how we can survive.

And how do we do that, when we don’t know in our heart of hearts that those like us exist? When we can’t be sure that we exist?

I was very lucky as a young man to feel confident and assured in seeing myself and then establishing myself as like the queer, fruity men that I saw and loved on the screen, no matter that they weren’t made with the thought of transgender men like me. Yet so many others, people I talk to, people I’ve never heard of, do not have that assurance.

They stand in front of a mirror and they don’t see anything. To feel transgender before one’s transition is often to see oneself or think of oneself as existing in potentia. We are an egg yet to crack and hatch; we are a soul without a vessel as yet.

How can we imagine a future for ourselves when we can’t envisage it? When we have no framework or canvas or idea of how a person like us can look, can live, can exist? How can we conceive of what we might be or what we truly are, when we might be grappling with our own pains and trauma and dysphoria, and at the same time society’s disregard of us, when we have never known or thought of others like us existing — let alone existing in beautiful diversity, in variety, in the complexity that we truly do?

Whenever I get one of those comments or whenever someone says a kind word to me about my work as a trans man and I see the light in that person’s eyes or the enthusiasm in the words they’ve written, there is an unspeakably immense happiness and joy in it.

To have taken part in that, to have created a mirror for that person to see themselves in, a character or characters that make that person feel real— not merely validated or represented, but seen and loved and cared for by a complete stranger, I can name no greater privilege.

It’s a shame I didn’t have that in my childhood, sure, but what’s important is that I and, far more importantly, a whole variety of trans and nonbinary creators, are doing that work today.

In Daniel Ortberg’s Something That May Shock and Discredit You, there’s a truly beautiful quote:

As my friend Julian puts it, only half winkingly: “God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation.”

In being transgender I have created myself — no longer in potentia, I have developed and evolved. I’ve played with my hair and my face and my jewellery and my clothes; I’ve fed and nurtured my masculinity and my love for men and manhood as a gay man; I have created myself, and that’s been very joyful for me…

But to create works that help other people, transgender or otherwise, men or otherwise, create themselves? See for themselves the sort of people they’d like to be, how they would like to make themselves created?

That is a triumph beyond measure, and I am so grateful to do so.