#transness or lesbianism talk about things.

[lwcina]

the fact that the us government can continue funding and arming a genocide despite massive public opposition really highlights how inherently non-democratic the united states is

[cr0ws-cha0t1c-c0llect10n]

💌

this if it’s not too late,,,,, i’m catching up on some chaotic crow lore 👁️👁️

NEVER TOO LATE FOR BESTIE APPRECIATION!!!!!!!!!! THE SEVERAL YEARS THAT I'VE KNOWN U HAVE BEEN SUCH A TREAT!!!!!!!! I COULD TALK TO U FOREVERRRRR EVEN THO I HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME TALKING TO PEOPLE!!!!!!! SO MANY FUN TIMES!!!!!!!!! SO MANY GOOD MEMORIES!!!!!!!!! THE SUPPORT U'VE GIVEN ME HAS BEEN UNREALLLLLL!!!!! BESTIE HIVEMIND FOREVERRRRR YEAHHHHHHH

[cuntess-carmilla]

Alright, let's try a thought exercise!

This thought exercise requires us to start by agreeing that women are an oppressed class (cis women, trans women, non-binary people who at least partially id as women or woman-adjacent).

If you can't concede that as a basis, then keep scrolling, this post isn't for you. I'm not here to convince MRAs that systemic misogyny – aka the patriarchy – is real. Alright? Alright.

I think we can all agree that, besides the institutional oppression faced by oppressed groups, they all also face acts of individualized concrete violence (which are then vindicated by institutions and/or sociocultural disinterest or even active acceptance).

You know, that thing we call hate crimes? Acts of violence committed against an individual by mere reason of an aspect of who they are which makes them oppressed and/or marginalized.

We discuss women as an oppressed class as well, but, save for specific feminist factions (largely, non-liberal feminists from the global south), no one really talks about misogynistic hate crimes.

Even though misogynistic men murder women and girls for no reason other than their own misogyny every day. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the time, when a man kills a woman it's not to steal from us, not as revenge for something shitty we did to them, not because we were in an altercation and it simply happened. No.

It's because "if I can't have her, then nobody can have her" (women as property), "she rejected me" (woman denied sex or romance to a man who wanted it), "she was trying to leave" (culmination of domestic violence), "she made me feel emasculated" (reaffirming masculinity through violence).

We're raped and otherwise sexually abused ALL the time as well, and our perpetrators are by far mostly cis men. I hope I don't have to go into detail on how that's related to misogyny.

Chile has pretty progressive femicide legislation as of somewhat recently. The legal definition of femicide went from being "male partner or ex-partner who murders his female partner or ex-partner" to "any killing of a woman for reason of her gender", which explicitly includes:

Women killed by men they were never involved with but who acted out of jealousy/possessivenes or as revenge because they were rejected.

Women being killed by men for being gender non-conforming.

Women being killed for being trans, lesbian or bisexual.

Women killed by men because they were sex workers.

(So, no, before the MRAs who kept reading get their panties in a twist, femicides in Chile are not defined as every single time a man kills any random woman. The motive for the murder has to be patriarchal bigotry in some form and that has to stand to scrutiny in court.)

If we accept that, like in the Chilean legislation of femicide, any act of violence committed by a man against a woman due to patriarchal bigotry is a misogynistic hate crime, shouldn't we be more alarmed with how astoundingly common and NORMALIZED hate crimes against women are?

How many women and girls do you know who have been sexually abused by a man or boy? How many which have been beaten? How many women do you know who have controlling and violent boyfriends or husbands or fathers or older brothers? How often do you hear about a woman who made it out alive by the skin of her teeth from the hands of a man who was absolutely going to kill her? And the ones that didn't make it? How about when misogyny intersects with race, disability, transness, gayness, socioeconomic class, religious minorities, and so on?

I firmly believe that the only reason we don't talk about these things as misogynistic hate crimes is because, despite being oppressed, women aren't a numerical minority. But, rather than that giving visibility to the violence we face, it invisibilizes it even more. It became society's normal to have approximately half of its population constantly subjected to hate crimes, to the point that there's whole TikTok trends dedicated to turning it into a joke (the "joke" where men pretend they're trying to suffocate their girlfriends with a pillow for being annoying) and until very recently it was perfectly ok for standup comedians to joke about it too. Precisely, because women are an oppressed class and violence against us is both socially sanctioned and encouraged, when it's hyper-visible, it becomes at best a fact of life that deserves no one's attention, and at worst it becomes a recurrent joke.

I, personally, believe that femicides and the largest portion of rapes suffered by women are misogynistic hate crimes, as are many other instances of violence women are used to now and that we deal with as a natural(ized) aspect of living as a woman. Which I know will get me called all sorts of names and slurs, but I can't see where my logic is failing.

[f1minist]

Feminist Youtube Videos for Every Topic

A collection of feminist content, organized topically for ease.

Separatism:

on separatism and heterosexuality

why separatism is good

we're gonna die sometime. might as well be separatists.

stop choosing patriarchy

separatism is a choice

biggest impact, but most won't do it

on vetting men

the benefits of separatism are endless

men cannot be rehabbed

of course the slave is full of rage for her slave master

Lesbian Stuff:

who can use the word 'lesbian'?

on defending gay rights and spaces

what are lesbians supposed to do about het women?

gender critical lesbophobia

the constant rage for gold star lesbians

Political Lesbian Critique:

a simple breakdown of political lesbians

political lesbians... are you ok?

political 'lesbians' are not actually lesbians

i didn't 'come to lesbianism'. i was always here.

homosexuality is not a choice

for those who confuse polilez vs febfem

Comp Het Critique:

comp het isn't a thing

lesbihonest-art (RIP) on comp het

on lesbian experience, by @sunlight-beauty

on comp het, by @rakastiikeri

sespursongles (RIP) on comp het

Preferred Pronouns:

on 'cis' and other language

pronouns are rohypnol

preferred pronouns? no.

what are your pronouns?

Anti Make-Up / Beauty / Femininity:

3 years without makeup: 5 benefits i've experienced

sephora girls: why are ten year olds wearing make-up?

marked women

makeup isn't empowerment

why i stopped wearing makeup

bimbofication: a dangerously idiotic trend

empowerment? no.

give the middle finger to patiarchy

radfems in eyeliner

makeup infinity

on makeup and radical feminism

maintaining the status quo hurts all women

the audacity of the bare-faced woman

critiquing is not shaming

why do women do beauty?

choice feminism is a lie

actually gender critical

Anti Surogacy / Natalism / Procretion:

about mothers

forced pregnancy is involuntary servitude

egg "donation" is exploitation

on sperm giveaways

motherhood is not untouchable

homosexuality does not include reproduction

why i don't want kids

why i'm childfree

on procreation and patriarchy

Porn / Sex Work Commentary:

instagram vs porn

'sex-positive feminism' benefits men (and hurts women)

the influence of porn on the trans trend

on 'sex work'

speaking out on prostitution

'sex work is work'? no, not really.

let's stop acting like 'sex work' is empowering

is porn 'for women' okay?

porn is apocalyptical

'ethical porn' cannot exist

stop glamourizing 'sex work'

porn is the pinnacle of evil

is r/antiwork pro exploitation?

Trans Critical:

mainstream, revisionist, queer nonsense

why transwomen don't have 'female brains', from @ilistened2transwomen

why the hate?

why i decided to stop using the term 'transwoman'

on trans rights activists

TRAs loooove white men

the untouchable male creep - AGPs on parade, from @ilistened2transwomen

'intersectional' does not mean 'trans inclusive'

non-binary is deeply rooted in misogyny

25 questions for trans activists

women's sports are not a dumping ground for mediocre men

on "identifying as" women

stacia samaya on 'non-binary'

why sex is binary

trans rights, or trans privileges?

always chasing the dragon

27 ways in which trans activism is harmful

the actual human rights law

on 'trans women are women'

is transitioning ever 'the best' option?

autogynephilia - a brief overview

the rise of the heterosexual queer

phobia indoctrination

transing away the gay

5 tips for talking gender critical, by @runawaysiren940

the transing of language

autogynephilia, not dysphoria

rainbow-washed progressivism

transwomen are not women

how i became gender critical

autogynephilia explained

[keithbutgay]

vat7k headcanons?

oh my gosh my time has come (you will probably regret this)

so first off imma reference my like three other posts i've made on the topic because i'm a nerd

starting with lgbt+ headcanons-

hugo is genderfluid and likes men i don't make the rules (he/she/they)

i am very much a trans varian truther. in my mind they use he/they pronouns and is also very biromantic

transing nuru's gender too- i love transfemme nuru (she/her) and also she's a lesbian definitely

yong gets the aroace nonbinary treatment

okay moving on to headcanons about languages-

its canon that varian speaks like three languages but i headcanon that he is fluent in coronan, saporian, and is learning the dark kingdom's language

hugo definitely knows so many languages because he gets around. i like to think he's fluent in ingvarran, coronan and bayangoran

i love the idea that yong is still learning coronan and that hugo sometimes has to translate for him or they repeat things for him sometimes because varian talks too fast or they use an unfamiliar word or like accents trip him up

on a seperate note in my mind coronan is german, bayangoran is mandarin, ingvarran is farsi (based on this post)

one of my favorite possible vat7k storylines is when hugo finds out about varian's past and i love the idea that he found out because of a wanted poster they found- perfect angst potential. on that note, i also believe that the rest of them would have heard about varian (the alchemist) when he was still wanted for example

hugo would have been told about him from donella, whether he was always told to be better and be like varian, or that he admired varian and thought he was really cool and dreamed of working with him

nuru had heard about him through horror stories about the kidnapping and attempted murder of the royal family. she most likely would have been scared of varian when she found out, not trusting him not to hurt her

i honestly think yong wouldn't understand. i don't think his parents would have told him if they even knew, and he would have been like seven at the time, so

hugo was varian's bi awakening except not really. he had liked guys before that but hadn't realized that was what he was feeling

they definitely met cass while on their adventures and she definitely had a girlfriend

ruddiger and prometheus hate each other

hugo is extremely jealous of ruddiger as well. ah yes him, his boyfriend, and his boyfriend's raccoon that's taking up all his attention

firmly believing in hugo showing up one day with period products because he might be a loser but he's not a jerk and nuru not knowing how to tell him she's trans while varian (also not out) comes up and just takes the pads being like 'thanks i needed these'

varigo-

t4t obviously

also they're both neurodivergent i dont make the rules

they hate each other but like not

like in the sense that, if they were asked if they liked each other, they would be like ew gross no i hate this man

and then at the end of the conversation varian kisses hugo on the cheek and is just like see you at home babe and everyone is like w h a t

they argue nonstop, to the point of being violent, and then someone changes the subject and hugo's in varian's lap

obsessed with that one au where they were in prison together

also obsessed with hugo dropping the piano on eugene's head

this entire post

might add to this later but here you go have fun!

[girlgerard]

Idk if this is too personal, but I wanted to hear/read about how you navigate transness, the way you talk about it, in relation to yourself or gway really interests me! I've realised that the way I see myself and navigate life as a black trans person is VERY different from what I usually see online, so I wanted to know how maybe other factors have afted your view as well.

(Btw I love your blog, it brings me immense joy!)

it’s not too personal, i love talking about transness!! to me, gender is a relational, communal identity, so i’m happy to discuss it :-)

the way i view gender is that, because it’s societally constructed, it’s environmental, and can change/remain constant depending on the variables you experience through your life. if i wasn’t jewish i would view my gender differently, if i wasn’t on the spectrum i would view my gender differently, etc., everything i’ve lived through has led to my current sense of identity and gender. this is why portraying queerness/transness as just One Type Of Thing doesn’t work; it’s not something that can be seen as separate from a person, nor something that can be seen as tangibly real. race, gender, any type of identity are just different ways of understanding and categorizing our lives, so they kind of domino each other - once you realize one aspect of yourself is outside the norm, it all sorta falls away.

that’s why i love discussing gender in relation to gerard way’s art - i really relate to how gendered categories are inherently transitional in their work. i don’t identify as transmasculine, and i only use the label “nonbinary” because it’s the simplest one there is; all i know is that i’m trans, i’m a lesbian, and i’d be some form of that no matter what i was born as.

the labels i use are metaphorical the way all labels are. my labels aren’t set in stone - they’re just the current best words i can use to describe myself. that might change tomorrow, or that might never change. it’s sometimes difficult for white people, who are often under the illusion that oppressive societal constructs like race and gender are “real” + moral, to understand that. that’s why they get all cagey and insulted when people of color suggest that their experiences of queerness/gender are different.

[transmascpetewentz]

Moving The Goalposts: Infighting, Exorsexism, and Transandrophobia

I want to start this off not by getting directly into the meat of my theory, but instead by showing all of you a post that I came across today that illustrates exactly what I am talking about when I say that transandrophobes, and specifically TEHMs in this case, move the goalposts in a way that causes infighting within the trans(masc) community. This is a post by a pretty well-known TEHM whose blog I've been watching for a while.

What Jackson is doing here seems pretty obvious on the surface. He's making fun of nonbinary people who were AFAB because he perceives them as fakers and/or trenders. However, when you take a look at some of the other things that he believes, you realize that it just isn't that simple.

This is a post by one of Jackson's mutuals on here. If you don't know what some of these phrases mean, "trans heterosexual" refers to gay trans people (in this case, it's likely focusing on transmascs, but this rhetoric harms transfem lesbians too), and "trans homosexual" refers to straight trans people. What lavenderlad is trying to do is infantilize non-straight trans people, acting like we are complaining about nothing (maybe hysterical, even) for pointing out the oppression that we face from cishets and cis queers alike.

But it goes even deeper.

This right here is a very interesting post, specifically because lavenderlad seems to have changed his tune completely. As opposed to infantilizing us like in the previous post, he has now switched to transandrophobic conspiracy theories about how we are apparently some sort of dominant societal force despite being less than 2% of the population. My antisemitism radar is going off right now, too, because this sounds suspiciously like your average antisemite talking about Jews. He went very quickly from treating us like we're little girls who can't do anything to treating us like evil, scary men who are trying to invade his space.

He moved the goalposts because it was convenient for him at this moment to contribute to the oppression of gay trans men.

To elaborate, there's a specific type of transandrophobia seen in these circles that Jackson and lavenderlad are using. They are applying both maleness and femaleness to us. They infantilize us like we are women, and use our perceived femininity to justify gatekeeping us out of their spaces, while also using very common anti-gay male and generally anti-marginalized male stereotypes such as us being inherently aggressive, invaders, our bodies disgusting, etc. It's exorsexism, plain and simple.

And I feel like these posts show us how transandrophobes and transphobes in general can cause infighting within the trans community. A feminine nonbinary person might look at Jackson's first post and go "see! trans men have so much better than me!" but in fact, trans men, both binary and nonbinary, aren't actually treated any better. The grass is not greener. Trans men who try to conceal our birth sex and/or transness are considered liars, trying to invade spaces we don't belong, and more; but trans men and transmascs who do not try to pass, who don't try to conceal our transness, are accused of being "not really dysphoric."

Do not be fooled into thinking that transandrophobes would like you better if your gender expression was different. They don't want trans men to be displaying our transness, they don't want us to go stealth, and they don't want anything in between. They want us to be cis. Do not argue with your trans brothers about who society hates more; because society will see you as whatever will prove a transandrophobe's point. Address the root problems of patriarchy and transandrophobia instead of letting infighting eat us alive.

[abyssalzones]

I would love to hear more abt your college pre-egg-breaking fiddauthor thoughts if you'd be open to it

oh BOY would I

so when I think about college fiddauthor nowadays I mainly think about both my own experiences with ~navigating identity~ and how I would approach a gay FTM relationship from a semi-realistic 1970's angle, where you start to see a lot of what you'd call "milestones" I guess in LGBT history and public awareness. wait okay here's something I said to mer that can set a precedent for what I'm talking about

when it comes to me and my own journey of self discovery irt sexuality and transness, I feel like those two things are very intertwined, because the concept of identity in my eyes is very socially motivated. I've previously identified as a nonbinary lesbian and a transgender gay man respectively before getting to the point I'm at now, and don't feel like either of those things were incorrect necessarily, just how I felt at the time (and what I wanted out of a relationship, really). I think I literally got an ask ages ago questioning how I went from one to the other but Idk I don't think the gender journey is as simple or "logical" as people coming from a hetero-patriarchal perspective (that's a mouthful) seem to think.

and, And, from a Historical perspective, FTM experiences and butch lesbian experiences have Always been very intertwined, especially back in the early 70's when more people were starting to have some awareness (even in LGBT spaces) of this thing known as the Transgender Lifestyle. I'm flattening things quite a bit here and I know for a fact there's a lot of variation between experiences, especially depending on your social circles, but from what I can glean a lot of the time transgender men weren't very well known and so a lot of the time you would just ID as a butch lesbian and/or present as a man socially, sometimes for safety reasons. and there's a lot of overlap there too that continues into contemporary transmasc spaces today :]

historical justification aside I basically think college would be a major turning point for self-discovery in both of their lives, but more-so for fiddleford than ford? I've always assumed based on everything we've seen that fidds was basically the only friend ford had in college, which definitely would have influenced him in important ways, but other than that I think he invested most of his time in studying and developments in gender were an afterthought. ford's FTM identity starts from a place of "failing to be a woman" and then develops with his pride in being a huge weirdo. in my mind that can only really happen once he's in gravity falls and has basically sacrificed his connections with other people/the world to live as his truest self, whether that's researching anomalies or living as a man.

fiddleford, however, I always think of from the perspective of someone bucking to societal expectations for safety reasons. this is because of a lot of things: ford's possible feelings of abandonment in favor of Normalcy (who can forget "Go back to your doting family and a life of fear and compromise!"), his jumping into a nuclear family immediately out of college, But also packing up and driving to oregon in a matter of days after ford asks for his help... when he has a kid who could be no older than 5 or 6 at home...? I sort of see his presentation as a foil to ford's, trying to mimic cishetero ("hetero") normalcy vs. being the Lone Transsexual Freak. I've gotten horribly off topic from the college thing hang on

basically I imagine them in their uni days like two weird butch gay women that are just, totally socially unapproachable. fiddleford is the more outgoing of the two as he's been voted "most likely to actually have other friends" in my mind, so if anyone was going to gay & lesbian student association meetings it would've been him, but otherwise ford is too busy ignoring his feelings. "I don't care if I'm a man or a woman I'm too busy studying. go away." but of course they find enough solace in eachother's company and their different-but-distinctly-similar weirdness that it forms an unbreakable transgender bond. freak4freak if you will. fidds settles on a bisexual identity without thinking about it too hard because honestly the conclusion here is that it doesn't matter if his roommate is a woman or a man he just knows he needs to do terrible things to him over d&d&md (sorry) (not really that sorry though.)

it's actually funny you bring this up because I'd been workshopping a short comic set in their college era that touches on this stuff a lot. not sure when that will ever get done but I can tell you it's. uhm

yeah they're kind of weird.

[sexisdisgusting]

I don’t wear makeup, I don’t shave, and I don’t wear heels or dresses. I don’t even own any makeup products or razors or heels/dresses. I’ve done them occasionally throughout my life, but never consistently. And I don’t wish I did.

But sometimes I feel alienated from other women, especially the women on TV shows and movies. All of them have hairless legs and armpits, makeup on 24/7, and they wear impractical and constricting clothing meant “for women.” It’s so strange to me how I rarely ever see a female character portrayed in media without all of these things.

I talk to other women in real life, and so many of them seem to think it’s insane not to do these things either. I listen to them talk about how long their morning routine took because they had to put on a full face of makeup, or how annoying it is to them that they “have to” shave their legs because their boyfriend is coming over. I just don’t understand. It feels like I’m a different species than them sometimes.

And now it’s got me thinking about TIFs. A lot of them are/were like me -- they didn’t enjoy wearing makeup or shaving or wearing “feminine” clothing. They felt so different from the other women around them and they started to think that they weren’t like those women, as if they weren’t women at all. And I feel awful for these TIFs. It is hard being a gender non-conforming woman in this world. It can be strange and alienating and lonely.

But regardless of if we subscribe to these oppressive standards of “womanhood,” we are still women. And it is much braver to recognize and accept our sex and continue to not conform to gender roles than to try to pretend that we are a different sex altogether. That is the easy way out. And I understand why they want to take it. But at the same time I don’t.

We need more gender non-conforming women in this world. And it’s hard for that to happen when all the gender non-conforming women are told that their gender non-conformity is indicative of “transness.” When a woman acting/looking gender non-conforming is told to “take some T.” When historical gender non-conforming, especially lesbian, women are now being referred to as “transmen.”

How are we ever supposed to escape the oppressive gender stereotyping the patriarchy shoves down our throats like this? -🪽

wow this is incredibly intelligent and insightful i agree entirely, the world needs more gnc women happy in their own skin to show that you dont need to trans out just bc u dont fit society's idea of a woman

take this

[iwanthermidnightz]

As usual, I’m gonna share the parts of this article that resonate with me (pretty much all of it). Several points were made. And the unapologetic queer visibility makes me so proud. Please give it a read 🥲

LD: I also do want to say, even though there is a bunch of awesome overlap with the trans community and the drag community, transness and drag are separate things — but that's the reason why we did it [in Tennessee], is because those things are being conflated here.

It's crazy that we were on tour for all of Pride Month and being pretty f*cking gay, and talking about gay rights on stage. You’d think that the circles that we run in would be like, yeah, cool, but I feel like there is still… Prejudice towards gay people comes from all sides, including gay people.

I have, you know, rolled my eyes at certain aspects of Pride, just the corporate aspect of things. We were hanging out with a friend who was like, yeah, the gas station has a pride flag, but I'm still getting looked at funny in the streets; what is Pride actually doing?

JB: Shell Oil Company is like, happy pride! Like, okay.

LD: It's weird, the more comfortable I am, the more opposition I feel from other people who are discontent with how I qualify as a gay person. I'm like, Do you need a sex tape?

PB: As someone who doesn't qualify as gay, I can't participate in this conversation. I haven't sent in enough chips to corporate. [laughs]

I speak for all of us [when I say] I feel like our communities are so supportive, like f*cking rainbows and buttercups all the time. We're really good at making friends and we have so much support around each of us, and so much privilege, and each live in an accepting place and choose accepting people to be around. But when I or Lucy get hate for not turning in our like, gay paperwork, all I'm thinking is about the way that I would have felt at f*cking age 11 being like, Oh, I'm not allowed to do that. This famous person is being humiliated for expressing themselves, and so I should not, I especially should not express myself.

JB: I don't get as much hate because people are like, there goes a lesbian. You know what I mean? [All laugh.]

LD: It’s really binary.

JB: I've spent a lot of my life being a masc dressing queer person, or just not engaging with gender play at all. It’s like, queer people saying that you have to acquiesce to one of three queer archetypes, or one of a handful of queer archetypes in order to be represented.

LD: That's why our shows are so special to me is that they are very gay. People are throwing flags at us, young people are making out in front of us, it is a space that is precious to me and would have changed my life if I could have been a part of it when I was younger. I'm extremely proud, and I just implicitly love everybody at our shows at a base level. I think we all do. The reason we're doing it is because we care abstractly about all these strangers and want for them what we could have had. Also we're coming from a position where we're talking to a bunch of young people, we do get to put messages worth hearing out there, I think that's not lost on us.

PB: I am mostly proud of the way that I watch the discourse [play out], and I'm proud of the conclusions that these children are coming to. Everybody is sticking up for us and each other and there's just a couple weirdos that are very loud. I think our community is being protected by the people in it. And it is such a safe space show, and I'm so fucking proud. Even the amount of femme people in the audience, screaming at the top of their lungs and having to take up a high octave... It’s a different rock show than I've ever experienced. It’s amazing to me.

JB: The microphone I have with y'all, the reach is wider, it just factually is, and I think a lot about responsibility to hear [others’ opinions…] To be the subject of discourse at all is to live a question into the world, so I will allow myself to do that. I will allow a little bit of my identity — which as a queer person, I've been at once defensive of and fiercely protective of and encouraged to erase completely — I'm like, okay, so I have to exist with this identity subsumed into the culture, into the topic of someone's conjecture. Because it's going to be one case study. That's the whole idea of visibility, visibility doesn't have to be perfect representation.

I was thinking about this too, something that bugged me was that meme that was the talent and popularity graph and it was popularity way above talent, and they were like, “This is boygenius.” You're missing the damn point. [If only the most talented people got to speak,] Steve Vai would be speaking for all f*cking musicians because he's best at guitar. That's not what I want.

PB: But again, that is just Twitter. I think we are as beloved as is possible for any public, femme presenting, or queer, in public. I think we just get an amount of hate because we're stepping on guitar guys. It is fucking dumb, and it is just what is happening. Every time I look at a Pitchfork post of us, it's the most incel f*cking shit ever in the comments section.

JB: I was telling Lucy, I feel like if someone made that meme about me, Julien Baker, on a solo headlining tour, I would be up at four in the morning in the back lounge of the bus running scales. With y'all, I'm like, You're missing the point you dumbass. It's like Kathleen Hanna being like, the Sex Pistols are bad at their instruments. Why can I not just have a band that's fun and cool and angry?

LD: I wanna say, we're a little fed up, obviously, with some things, but I agree with you, Phoebe, the biggest sentence I have to say is we're having so much fun. That is the message that I think people are mostly getting, and the one that I want them to get, is that we are happy and having fun, and that is not frivolous at all. Fun is essential.

PB: Everybody knows every word to the entire set. We sell thousands of tickets. It is going as good as humanly possible. It is insane.

LD: And it's because we feel safe and supportive that we can mostly safely and supportively do drag in Tennessee. It's because we have such a solid foundation of joy we can be in defense of other people's joy, in ways that feel really valuable to me personally, and I hope valuable to other people.

JB: The whole reason why I feel comfortable engaging with this at all and it's not an existential crisis for me is because, what you're saying, Lucy: I have a foundation of joy that makes me convicted that this is important, not frivolous, highly worthy, highly valuable. So when I see us as the subject of discourse I'm interacting with it in a different way that I don't think I'd be able to [alone]. I wonder if kids watching that in third person happen will also be resilient to the same kind of things.

PB: You’re allowed to be bad at guitar, anybody reading this.

LD: I’m bad at guitar.

PB: Other shit, you do have to work so hard. And you have to love it. If you love playing guitar and you're bad at guitar, that rocks.

TV: What other moments would you highlight? I feel like there’s been a lot of good ones, like the t-shirt selling out.

PB: Love, love to just have the power to snap my fingers and mobilize people to give their money away to a cause. That is the best part of my job.

JB: It’s participation. It’s visibility. It's you, outward signaling something you believe in as a principle. It's also literally redistributing funds to us to organizers, nonprofits and legislators that are trying to make the world a better place. And we get to be in charge of that, and also give somebody a gift that's like, you're a country queer! We see you.

TV: Did you expect the fans to be so young this tour? I’ve been really impressed!

LD: It's interesting, I think Julien was saying this, being something through which some kids are learning some stuff. I usually am really upset when I'm misunderstood, but I think that part of that happening now is people on their way to understanding something that I think is important and outside of me, that we are just a case study for, and that is just a really sweet and special position to be in.

JB: This really gets to me, I'll see a group of friends all hugging during our set, a collection of songs about grieving and leaning on your friends. I'll be like, What did y'all go through? Something f*cking horrible.

I think about this with the credibility or the legitimacy of music, like with the whole Pitchfork incel guy, it goes back to that. I'm like, dude, I love that a bunch of kids are at our show. I've said it once, I'll say it again: I took a class in young adult literature. And I was like, wow, this is maybe the most important kind of literature. Paradise Lost is for people who think that their brain is big, young adult literature is for f*cking people who don't know what literature is yet — they need a window, they need a door. They need a pass. Phoebe you were saying, like, music that not-adult cis white guys like.

LD: Those guys are showing up too, and good for them. And if they're the ones that are mad about this, maybe they're on their path of understanding something better, too.

JB: I cry at all the kids, man.

PB: Me too.

JB: My mom texted me and was like, I would have died if there was something like y'all when I was a kid — and I don't even think she gets some stuff we're saying.

PB: It's funny to [realize] I would have bleached my hair and wanted to be me.

JB: Dude, it's so f*cking sick. I think about me at 16 — I was trying to be a hardcore guy, I wanted to get tattoos, I wanted to play guitar in a band. And then I just turned out… me. I used to try to make my hair look like k.d. Lang; I wonder if we're a thing people realize they can look like.

LD: Also, I think being affectionate on stage has been really fun and sweet, and it exhibits behavior that I think is healthy and good. That's another element of it that I think is good to show kids, the way that I think drag is actively good for kids to interact with, because it's this fun way to interact with gender and to explain things like that early to children is really awesome. Just being able to gaily and affectionately kiss your bros, that's a principle that I value, that I wish was more valued for kids. Not saying like, kids gotta go all make out!

I'm proud of the space we're taking up. I think we're using it in ways I'll be able to stand behind when I get older.

PB: There's also such a deep, both fetishizing and desexualizing of lesbians, in a way that I think is ridiculous. Obviously MUNA is standing staunchly against that as well, by being a f*cking boyband. It's just fun to be like, it's not that serious — and it also is deeply meaningful.

[alexissara]

Trans Awareness and Remembrance

Being trans is something special, it means so many things to so many people and even people who should feel the same things the internal sense of something can still be so wildly different. Being trans is a core part of who I am, not just in that a core part of who I am is a woman but that being trans is a core part of me as well. I've often said if I was AFAB I'd probably say that my gender was just Lesbian but given the cards I was dealt with at birth being a woman and a lesbian are both important to me.

For me, coming out as trans was a long journey from when I found out about trans woman, and the reason it took so long was because of my status as a lesbain. It was the early internet, I lied about my age online so I could access age gated websites doing my best to type and behave like an adult to not get caught. I enter a fourm for trans women and gender change fetishists. Here, I learned more in detail about trans women. However, early 2000s internet trans women were 200% what we in the modern day would call truescum. You had to desire many surgeries, be utterly dysphoric, and the biggest barrier for me, you had to be straight. I fought back, and I was a passionate defender of trans lesbains on that fourm and around the net, but I did internalize it. I didn't want to be a woman, I wasn't a woman, I liked women. If I got with women, I'd not want to magically wake up as one, I'd stop fixating over ways to become a woman, at least beyond the way it had become a fetish. So I did, I dated a lot of women in my freshmen year of high school, I was always chasing after girls, especially bi women and women who wanted to dress me up like a girl. At the end of my freshman year, I would get with my current Fiancée who would explore their own gender and sexuality along with me.

I would spend several years convincing myself my desires were just a fetish even my telling my partner about my fetish came out in weepy tears as if I was coming out as trans because at that point I had to tie that to my identity, it was something that consumed a lot of my time with roleplays and what not becoming my central light in my life where I could play a woman or play someone becoming a woman. I'd eventually meet my long time long distance GFs through and through her status and a out trans woman started to push me towards finally leaving behind the pretext of fetish to explain my deep depression, my deep longing and my deep desire. After many years of concealing and doing my best to not be feeling my Fiancé and GF had a little intervention for me. They talked to me about being non binary and about my own transness and that I was probably trans and that both of them would happily accept me and that it was okay for me to be myself. I rejected it that night but the very next morning, I looked into the mirror, realized I couldn't keep up what I was doing and came out as gender fluid to them.

It would take a bit longer for me to admit what I had known since I was in middle school and first saw the world Trans Woman, when I first read Ramana 1/2, when I saw the body swap episodes of TV shows, that I wanted to be a girl, to have a woman's body, to live in community with other women and be a woman, that I was a woman and I had pushed it back for so long. I'd go to a university therapist to get formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria, I did get it and a letter of recommendation for a gender change and for getting on meds. I would start soon after and never look back. I spent so long doubting that once I was on the path to being a woman it was clear to me.

At that point being a lesbian seemed pretty obvious to me, it would take me a while to be set on what kind of asexual I was and before accepting I was trans I did for a few years ID as bisexual just because I knew I was some kind of queer but it was really just me trying to find a way to be in community while not being able to express my other aspects of queerness yet. I did talk about my label with my partner who was on his own gender journey but they were insistent that me being a lesbian didn't invalidate their own non binary masculinity or make them feel bad so I finally reached the point I had wanted to hit all those years ago, being a Lesbian and a trans woman.

I explain all this just to say to other people who might feel like because their sexuality or whatever else they can't be a woman, that they need to be some platonic ideal of the average cis/het white woman to be a trans woman it isn't true. You can be your true self whatever sexuality you have and whatever presentation you might want and anything else. You get to decide what being a woman means to you. It's worth being yourself even when I was in the pit of Texas, even when I lost family, I never regrated being myself, I finally wanted to be alive and I would trade any danger for the enjoyment of the living.

[postoctobrist]

Hi, Alice. I know this isn't really your usual sort of ask, but seeing you talk so lovingly to people just beginning to work out their gender feelings has made me feel sort of melancholy because I feel like I'm on the opposite side. I've been out for almost a decade, I'm coming up on seven years on T and I just kind of feel like I've lost the joy in being trans. I'm dealing with some health stuff, probably related to my hormone levels but as yet undetermined, which has basically eradicated my ability to have any sort of sex life (this is on top of other, much more long-term chronic illness). I might have to start taking estrogen as well which is terrifying the absolute shit out of me even though I know intellectually that taking a very low dose won't have any of the effects I'm afraid of.

I feel like a walking embodiment of the shit TERFs say about how taking hormones will ruin your life and fuck up your genitals. I'm utterly broken down by the relentless transphobia of this shitty fucking island. Sometimes I scare myself into thinking that I want to detransition, even though I know I wouldn't be happier as a woman, but god damn, when I think about that hot little 18 year old lipstick lesbian I was a decade ago it makes me want to cry. I don't know how to feel good about my body anymore. The days of feeling excited about playing with my gender expression feel like they happened a thousand years ago on Mars. The semblance of 'community' I had before COVID sort of disintegrated and I'm still mostly too riven with COVID anxiety to get it back. I'm very sorry for dropping this enormous shedload of feelings on you but I guess I just don't know how to take joy in being trans anymore.

I've been there - sometimes I am there. As a community, we're pretty good at getting people through the early years of transition, but after that you're supposed to just be good, which might be fine except that all the other parts of life keep going. Not only does transition not solve all your problems, but you keep getting new problems and they're all weird - my top left rib pops in and out of place a bit when I sit down now, it's great. We don't have a good set of ways for talking or thinking about aging, including for cis people. And on top of everything else, the world is getting harder and hotter and more bigoted and we survived a fucking pandemic. But: we survived a fucking pandemic. And we survived all the other things. We're tough, tougher than anyone gives us credit for, including us. Under the circumstances, we're doing pretty good. So that's the first thing: what you're feeling is normal.

Second part: is that feeling helpful or realistic? I don't think that it is. You can't know that you'll always be unhappy with your body, or that you'll never rebuild community. I don't believe that people can be ruined. Okay, you can't go back to being 18, and that's painful, but neither can cis people and they get upset about it too. And 18 year olds are really annoying, imagine being one.

All in all what I'm getting at is that stuff happens to us, like it does to everyone. We took an uncommon step to enforce the correct version of ourselves on the stuff, that's all. And you don't always have to be happy or picture-perfect about it, you don't always have to love it. But if that version of you is the right one, I suggest there is something there beyond joy. The joy can be beautiful, but time has given me the chance to understand my transness as a solemn, clear declaration of myself.

And that joy can and most likely will come back. Even if you have to find new things or think in new ways, inshallah we will all get our joyful moments. Despite everything.

be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous

in the final account only this is important

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

When I was in college, I wasn't the quote unquote perfect activist. I am definitely not immune to making mistakes, especially in the heat of emotional moments. But...let's talk about my experiences for a moment.

-During my first semester of college I joined my university's local PRIDE club. I suggest that we do some sort of clothing drive, and have a place where anyone can give or take clothing. The intent of this was obvious and person: I came from family who either did not really understand my transness or actively disapproved of it and didn't have an income. I could not be the only one. We should be helpful in this way, to our trans brothers and sisters.

Sometime later, someone suggests changing the clothing drive into a clothing sale to fund their Drag Ball. PRIDE under that semester's leadership never does a clothing drive. My vision would not be completed until a couple of semesters later, working with my university's LGBT Center, and working loosely with PRIDE's new management.

-The one thing I failed to notice coming into PRIDE was that I couldn't find other trans women. That didn't bother me, and I was fairly popular early on. This was until someone else came out as a transgender woman. Initially I was happy to have another trans woman as a friend, but I very quickly began to notice the social effect. They were shorter, smaller, and more femme. Their social transition progressed much faster than mine, because they weren't poor. They regularly got many clothes from their friends in PRIDE, even as discussions occurred about a clothing drive. I got nothing. I was being outfemmed.

-I noticed the uplifting of drag performers and drag stars by many of my cis and nonbinary peers in the group. I often asked myself why this happened. For some of these people, drag was almost a lifestyle. The performance of hyper-femininity by someone who was AMAB in the context of a drag show was met with cheers, applause, fandom. Meanwhile, my displays of my own femininity were met with nothing. Those same people never complimented me.

-The president of PRIDE gave a presentation on the history of drag. They mentioned Ru Paul, but handwaved away their trans-misogynistic comments, saying they were unimportant.

-A considerable amount of time later, our LGBT Center did a wide survey of queer people on campus. Some responses by cis lesbians bemoaned a lack of lesbian support groups, and more importantly, that they didn't feel like they ever saw anyone that looked like them at the center. I object to this finding, because I myself am a lesbian, I am what they are looking for and am always at the center. I bring up the possibility that the comment may be transphobic. I am shot down. I was denying other people's feelings. I was a trans woman, not a lesbian.

-A dear friend of mine suggests doing a PRIDE event about learning how to do make-up. This is something I was in great support of, because I did not like the extent trans women were expected in a very short span of time to grasp all the complexities of the role of woman in today's society, when cis women get so much longer. What will not be included is tutorials of using make-up to cover facial hair follicles. They did not want to focus on tutorials about passing. I protest, in part because the darkness of my follicles is something I'm very self-conscious of, and that passing in itself is something that a lot of trans woman want. The make-up event never happens.

-A trans woman is talking about her transition experience. She is notably well off and has gotten a variety of surgeries. She explains this is ultimately the path that all trans women need to take, unless they end up looking like "fishy boys". This notably impacts my friend in a severe way.

-A series of hate crimes strikes campus rapidly. Someone spray-paints the "N" word on one of the school buildings, while conversion therapy pamphlets are deliberately left in classrooms teaching about LGBT subjects. Campus police do not care to investigate. PRIDE and BSU being to work collaboratively on a protest. The atmosphere is very good, there are a variety of different but very good conversations, and both groups work well on various tasks that were planned. The protest does not focus on what happened to LGBT students. Members of the LGBT Center and of PRIDE did not speak. We, who had been working hand and hand, were reduced to a footnote and a one-liner in a chant.

-While asking for more information about the investigation into both of these incidents, myself, the Title 9 administrator, and one of my coworkers, a black queer woman, are invited to a meeting with the VP of Student Affairs and the detective on the case. None of us were made aware of the presence of the chief of police nor of a third officer whose purpose was unknown. These investigations would never result in anything.

-In the issue of the school newspaper that reported on the hate crimes, included as well along side of it was a story about how conservatives felt like they were being silenced on campus.

-When I first went to college, I went to Housing to discuss the possibility of gender neutral housing, which they have on their website. I am told there is none, but they can make an accommodation by giving myself my own dorm room on the men's floor. I had been unable to transition before this point because of living with religious conservative family members. I am told that if I want to have a room on the women's floor, where I would have a more private showering area that was not a public shower with other men, that I would need the gender on my birth certificate changed.

Both of these were lies.

-I have a discussion with my mother about her continuing to deadname me, noting that I did not want to end up confusing my niece once she became old enough to remember my name. This does not change.

This is just, the experiences that I can recall while writing this post. It is not an exhaustive list. Discussing school administrations chronic underfunding of the LGBT Center and the resulting drama that caused over years would be an entirely new post. There's possibly even more stuff that I've simply just fucking forgotten over the years. It wasn't all bad. I met some truly incredible people and did some truly incredible things.

But there was bad. Some of it was general, but a lot of it was trans misogynistic, even if I don't think it was always intentional. A lot of these experiences changed me into the jaded bitch I am today on a lot of issues.

[bonefall]

I wanted to ask something queer because it’s pride month but I can’t think of anything… do you have any queer bb rewrite stuff to talk about?

HERE, have a queer jumble of a bunch of the gay changes in BB;

As far back as DOTC, Thunder Storm was transmasc. His childhood best friend is also his lover; Lightning Cry.

There is a third gender in Clan Culture; Meewa. Gray Wing was Meewa and to this day, the role is associated with parenthood and wisdom.

Bumble and Turtle Heart were mates.

The Clanmew parental terms are decoupled from gender; the Mi is the primary parent, a Ba is a secondary.

For an example; Breezepelt is the Mi of his litters, Harestar and Heathertail were both Ba.

In Clanmew, Harestar had so many Ys in his warrior name (Yywayayiaoyyr) that Breezepelt got the kits to call him Yya.

Bluestar was queer. She had strange relationships with almost everything personal, but the only thing that matters is how much she LOVED her friends and how far she would go for them

The entire Forget-me-not friend group was queer in some ways.

And Bluestar’s friend Rosetail, turns out she's aromantic!

She loves romance, matchmaking, but eventually realized she doesn't like being in one. She just likes the idea a lot.

So of course Thistleclaw was PISSED when his sister claimed Queen’s Rights and adamantly refused to name a father.

She matched up her son Redtail with Runningwind, I like to think she was a very "when am i getting grandkits" kind of mom

Redtail was trans, but also gave birth to his children. That was Sandstorm and Longtail.

Redtail's transness was why Bluestar gave Dustpaw to him, she could see that Dust was working something out and hoped that Red would help

Dustpelt is genderqueer! He doesn't conform to the expectations of toms for his society; construction is largely a molly activity.

One-eye was a legendary builder in her time. It was a high honor when she came out of retirement to mentor him, when she was nearly 20 years old no less!

Cinderpelt was a lesbian, but there wasn't really anyone in the Clan she was interested in. Meh.

I do want to write a little scene where she goes to BloodClan to learn about mobility devices to help Wildfur, and has an AWOOGA moment at Cody

Leafpool and Mothwing are in love with each other, and look forward to every meeting. But they serve their Clans above all. The yearning.

I am very partial to Daisy x Squirrelflight, loooong in the future, after Squirrelflight has found fulfillment in her family and mentorships.

Conversely the untapped potential of Spiderleg x Bramblestar is unmatched. Nightmare husbands, this is the funniest thing I've ever heard of

Heartbreaking! the worst people you know have gotten gay married

Brokenstar and Runningnose were so gay I don't even have words for it, there's homosexual and then there's whatever the hell is going on over there

"My childhood best friend is a manifested curse and I would do anything for him, so I dedicated my whole life to becoming a more ruthless and brutal asset to serve his wants and desires, rejecting the stars and walking into the netherworld with glee, and only finding that it is hell because he isn't there. When you look between us, it's impossible to tell which of us was the monster, and which was the man, and yet I have never made a choice that I wouldn't make again."

Blackstar was aromantic! Russetfur was his lifelong best friend and partner, her death devastated him

He had flings and friends with benefits, though. Specifically, he's homosexual/aromantic.

Russetfur was gay too, I'm not sure if she ever had a wife though

I haven't drawn her yet but I see her as butch. Also she had large eyebrows.

Rowanclaw, honor sired for Newtspeck, was transtom

His apprentice, Talonclaw, survived the mauling because Smokefall did not die in the mountain this time around! They had a summer wedding

Irony struck when Rowan's kid Tigerheart also ended up being trans, but transmolly

Funny coincidence that everyone around Rowan ends up being queer

Tigerheart, who later becomes Heartstar, was in love with Dovewing from the moment they were apprentices on the Beaver Quest, before she even hatched

Dovewing dated Bumblestripe, even choosing him and ThunderClan over the instability of running off with Tigerheart

But when she got pregnant she SKEDADDLED

Lightleap and Shadowsight are biologically Bumble's, but Heartstar adopted them immediately

Heartstar is incredibly smug about this. "My wife. My kids. Cry about it"

Ivypool went through something similar, in a pretty bad relationship with Blossomfall and eventually getting with Fernsong

Only Fernsong is NOT smug, he's an ex-kittypet who joined during ThunderClan's Tempest and BOY HOWDY did he not want to make waves

But now he's dating the deputy's grandchild (thru Lionblaze), has an angry Blossomfall on his ass, and.... it's worth it lmao, have you seen his wife? Marvelous

He is the Mi of the children, this is the life for him

Thriftear and Plumstone are gay

Over in RiverClan, Hawkfrost and Reedwhisker were an item and were going to get serious... but then, well. Hawkfrost went through TNP and ended up dead.

In SkyClan, Violetshine, Dragonfly, and Tree are a polycule

I'm not quite sure what's going on with Echosong, Leafstar, and Billystorm. But Leaf and Billy are together, and I think Leaf has a thing with Echo. But Echo and Billy are not together, and Echo isn't involved with the kittens.

This isn't a queer thing but Sharptooth's wife Cherrytail was spayed. I think Hawkwing and co were surrogated by Echosong, but I'm not sure yet

But I do know that Cherry did not birth those kittens

Over in WindClan, I combined Jake and Sparrow into one character. Tallstar’s Collapse is reworked into Talltail traveling around with him and his group, until ultimately, he realizes it's not that easy to leave his Clan behind

I want to approach it as a tragedy, that he couldn't stay somewhere he was truly loved and happy

He was raising kids with Jake, two orphans they found. One of them followed him, even though he tried to tell him to stay with Jake and his sibling

That kid becomes Flytail, and then Flylight as an honor title

Sunstrike and Furzepelt are gay, and Furze is going to be an AVOS save thanks to Brushblaze, Breezepelt, Harestar, Heathertail, Crowfeather, and two more cats I haven't picked yet

Speaking of Brushblaze, Leo is an ex-BloodClan trader who joined WindClan to be with Onewhisker

It fell apart and he's been bitter about it ever since

Onestar is a disaaaaaaaster

He had a fling with Firestar before Fire realized he was aromantic, and it never would have worked anyway since Firestar was leading a clan

He always had an excuse for why he wasn't doing PDA with Brush, but while he was going through apprenticeship (despite being a qualified adult cat, very frustrating) Onewhisker was seeing Smoke

I kinda just want to remove Onewhisker having Whitetail as a mate entirely, I already fixed the apprenticeship thing but I kinda just like him having someone honor dam for him and he raised Heathertail alone

And lastly, Firestar

Firestar is totally aromantic.

He honor sired Sandstorm's kittens and raised them with her, because she is a deeply reliable friend and ally. They're in a QPR!

There's definitely a couple I missed (toadnettlepool, Sedgecreek x Greenflower) but that's enough for now

[possibilistfanfiction]

Genuine question, how did you figure out or realize the whole being butch thing? What does being butch mean to you?

idk if it was like… figure out? more so just putting a name to something i’ve always felt or known about myself. i came out as a lesbian, then i came out as nb, then i was like well i want gender affirming care so that must mean i am Trans™️, & it’s like… none of those words or kind of… vibes (lol sorry) quite fit? i don’t feel like a cis lesbian, & i actually kind of despise non-binary as a concept (don’t send asks abt this i won’t answer them lol, do ur own thing if u love it that’s cool); i think for me personally Transness is a little too serious & intense & limiting to how i feel. & im a white afab person in a smaller body, & honestly…….. we are often the wooooorst demographic of trans ppl lmao so i just didn’t even rly like some spaces i was in. i got the most important gender affirming care i wanted, i moved & i got married, i got to work remotely etc

& so just sitting with all of that it was like. ok well a lot of neoliberal queer spaces piss me the fuck off; i’m not cis, but i’m not TRANS in the way a lot of ppl (very validly) feel; i do Not like nb. i’d read stone butch blues before, i have a degree in critical theory where i worked a loooot w queer theory, obviously i’ve written abt queerness for ages lol. so then i was just like ah. butch. dyke. YAH! sweet. 100/10 feels amazing i love it

& i think for me i love those words most bc they’re rooted in really radical belief that i have. they carry an ethic with them that, at its best & most intersectional ofc, i want to act on, all the time. i want to show up for people & be protective & tough & strong but i also so deeply want to be nurturing & nourishing. i want to allow myself to be nourished & cared for. i think it feels rly wonderful to have a word for transgressive gender that sums it all up bc people lived it before me. they made that very specific & particular space to experience femininity in a way that doesn’t feel like a noose.

i think also butchness is so expansive! something that never sat right w me abt the way we talk abt transness in the west is that i don’t think there are ‘pre’ & ‘post’ transition selves. like… i’ve never been Not Me? like i came out of the womb a dyke. all i did my entire childhood is run around in the mountains, catalogue leaves, play w my dog, read nancy drew, & avidly watch + play any women’s soccer i could. i loved to fish & mountain bike, i grew up in the desert so gardening to me was a miracle. i never cared abt gender at all beyond like ‘well i guess i’m a girl & the women i admire just won a world cup, they’re badass’ & that was it. i liked boys clothes bc they were practical & felt better, but i just. didn’t think about it. ppl called me a tomboy which was fine, i liked scout in to kill a mockingbird so whatever. but i never felt “non-binary” & i certainly never felt like a boy.

& i am… still just like that lmao. i hated my boobs, point blank day 1 lol, but that doesn’t have to mean i’m trans, or that i’ve somehow changed in a way that requires separation from who i’ve been my whole life. i HATE the language of ‘dead/lived’ name; i hate the weird expectation that u should allow the state to have all of ur gender stuff on record (no fucking thank you, y’all can keep my legal name & i will be flying under the radar lol). so i think western transness rly just. irritates me. doesn’t fit. hasn’t ever fit.

so butchness is like. i am 8 year old jude, i’m just older now. if this makes sense ur butch lmao but. it’s this rly free space to play w masculinity in a way that doesn’t necessitate western transness, & also doesn’t necessitate a separation from maternalism, which i fundamentally believe in. i don’t even rly think of my own care as “gender affirming” & more just like… essence affirming. i didn’t want top surgery so my body could be read as male; i wanted it so i could look like me. i want my clothes to feel & fit in a Very particular way bc that’s how i like them. it’s abt practicality, efficiency, comfort.

& lastly to me butchness has a remarkable space for tenderness that masculinity on its own just cannot hold. like. it’s abt being protective & strong, sure, but it’s in service of others. always always always. so sometimes that looks like communicating calmly, sometimes that looks like infinite small acts of service for ur friends or ur partner. when i think of settling into myself it’s more about returning to who i knew i was when i was a kid, when i was the only person my dog liked & how it felt to sit on the swings when the sun was setting after the monsoon; it’s allowing myself to love like that — caring, & quiet, & full.

ultimately to me butchness is about devotion, more than anything in the world. devoted to safety, devoted to community. no one is devoted the way dykes are bc it’s how we survive. it’s how we have always survived — the steadfastness, the faith, the joy, even thru suffering, to not be boxed in. to help each other. to be funny & kind & thoughtful & not reject the absolute best parts of womanhood for the sake of a western box. to demand care. it’s so beautiful. devotion.

tldr it’s the best

[quark-nova]

Do including t4t folks who date outside their gender include nblnb and nblm/nblw? Does it include people in these groups who are in an AMAB+AFAB relationship? IDK if this is tmi, I'm AMAB transneutral enby, my husband is a AFAB trans man. We've been together a decade , he's currently also pregnant: we're in the process of having a child. Whenever we bring up our relationship in t4t spaces, people either treat me like a cis man who doesn't belong in these spaces and as if our relationship is basically c4t MLM, or treat him as as a bi butch woman as opposed to a trans man especially when people found out he was pregnant and wasn't interested in his explicitly queer masculinity and transition making him identical to a cis man.

Plus, neither of us really pass due to how we present ourselves, I at most look like a flamboyant gay man, tall lanky hairy and bearded who plays around with makeup expression but doesn't gravitate towards feminine wear. He's gendered as a butch lesbian almost exclusively as opposed to a man, he doesn't bind which alone gets him misgendered, he wears masc clothing but a variety of factors in which he presents himself and even basic things such as how his voice sounds are enough for him to lose that association with manhood and gets him clocked. Do I need to be transfem and transition to look like a woman for our relationship to be seen as "t4t" enough? I'm not a trans woman or transfem and I'll never be, does that make me a cis invader incroaching on actual t4t people? Does he have to transition specifically in a way to fit cis centric standard of manhood, does he have to desire top and bottom surgery as opposed to "just" hormones in order to be seen as his actual gender in t4t spaces? Are t4t people not allowed to have children nautrally, does that makes us too close to cishets in their eyes for people's comfort?

We have mutual nblnb friends , same AMAB+AFAB, agender + multigender. Both of them present in ways that align with their AGAB, they're not men or women but their relationship in t4t spaces has been dismissed and treated as a "cishet relationship" constantly, with them being actively misgendered even in trans positive spaces. Are they just straight too, silly little cishets who want to hog up t4t resources from? Do t4t relationships only count as queer if they're binary/binary? If both people have the same gender? If people go through full medical transition? If they're both the same AGAB? What makes t4t inherently worthy in the eyes of people within the community, none of us are aware because we've all been actively excluded or dismissed for one reason or another, had our transness intrinsically erased due to not being the "expected" t4t couple.

The way people talk about t4t as this club which queerness is so narrow and if you fall out of what's expected for t4t you're basically straight? There are straight t4t people who are awesome and face their own isolation within queer spaces that I cannot speak on, so I won't. Having different AGABs or not being strictly MLM/WLW just feels like a quick way to get misgendered or to have your queerness and transness taken into question. It sucks. T4T is celebrated but only if you're a certian type of T4T.

Yes, both you and your friends should absolutely be included in T4T discussions! These are an extremely valuable experiences that you're bringing, and dismissing it as "c4t" or "cishet" is just misgendering. NB4NB relationships are not any less queer, and they're not "cishet lite" just for being of different AGABs - once more, it's reducing nonbinary people down to their AGAB, which is sad to see so often in queer/trans spaces.

I haven't been in T4T relationships myself so I can't comment on the isolation that some kinds of T4T relationships face, but it's absolutely true that some types get talked about more than others, creating unfair expectations for people whose relationships don't fit inside this norm. Which is sad, as subverting expectations of gender like you do is as queer as queer can be!