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luckyduckwrites · 5 months ago

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Another Contestant Chapter 1-17: Total Drama, Drama, Drama, Drama Island

Fandom: Total Drama (Cartoon)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Heather (Total Drama)/Original Character(s)

Characters: Heather (Total Drama), Gwen (Total Drama), Original Non-Binary Character, Owen (Total Drama), Bridgette (Total Drama), Geoff (Total Drama), Duncan (Total Drama), Devon "DJ" Joseph, Courtney (Total Drama), Ezekiel (Total Drama), Sadie (Total Drama), Katie (Total Drama), Eva (Total Drama), Noah (Total Drama), Justin (Total Drama), Tyler (Total Drama), Trent (Total Drama), Izzy (Total Drama), Cody Anderson, Harold McGrady V, Lindsay (Total Drama), Beth (Total Drama), Leshawna (Total Drama), Alejandro Burromuerto, Sierra (Total Drama), Chris McLean, Mildred "Blaineley" Stacey Andrews O'Halloran

Additional Tags: Total Drama: Island, Total Drama: Action, Total Drama World Tour, Nonbinary Character, POV Original Character, Slow Build, Slow To Update, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Romance, Crush at First Sight, Teen Crush, Canon Lesbian Character, POV Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Original Character-centric, Developing Relationship, Minor Alejandro Burromuerto/Heather

Summary:

I'm Carmen, and I signed up for this show as a last-minute decision a few minutes before the time ran out to sign up. I signed up for Total Drama because I wanted to get away from my life. My parents don't understand me, and they constantly mis-gender me. I'm non-binary, but they keep using she/her when referring to me and deadnaming me. I know they love me, but I just need a break from it all. Maybe I'll make some new friends, or meet someone special.

Carmen is AFAB non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.

**AO3 & Wattpad links in masterpost pinned to the top of the blog**

A/N: I'm trying out adding Chris's opening and ending dialogue for each episode for each chapter, starting now. Let me know what you think, and if I should keep doing this for the next season!

"Welcome back to Total Drama Island. It's been a long time since you last saw our campers slugging it out for the $100,000 Grand Prize. Since the competition came to a shocking and dramatic conclusion, our campers have had some time to snack on some real food - no offense, Chef - take a hot shower, get their stuff back, and even peruse their emails from home. There were losers. Okay, lots of losers, hehe. But there was only one winner: Owen. The youngest of three brothers and a hardcore underachiever turned out to be the surprise champ. Without much knowledge, ambition, fitness, or even charm, he ended up with one massive prize. He's planning a wicked tropical party for all his fellow campers this winter. But first, they're gonna move their booties for one final poolside rap party, and tomorrow, everybody's heading for home. Or are they? Find out here on Total! Drama! Island!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I walk past the hot tub while looking for my girlfriend, and roll my eyes when I see Duncan and Courtney making out again. There's way too much of that going around lately, now that TDI is over. It's been a total snog-fest! Heather and I kiss sometimes, but the most we usually do is just cuddling together.

Suddenly, Courtney pulls away from Duncan, saying, "Ew. Duncan, stop it."

Duncan asks, "Why so uptight, hot stuff? What happened to that crazy chick who helped me raid the camp kitchen?"

The brunette scoffs, responding, "I'm over this stupid show. I lost the competition, me pathetic lawyer lost my lawsuit, and now I just wanna go home, study for my LSATs, and work my class president campaign."

Duncan's expression drops, and he says, "Wow. Hello, downer. Come on, relax. It's almost over. I thought you'd be happy."

Courtney exclaims, clearly upset, "I am happy!"

I leave the toxic twosome alone and finally find Heather by the buffet table, where Leshawna, Gwen, and Trent are laughing at something and whispering among themselves through chuckles.

Heather turns around to face them, and I see exactly what they're laughing at as she asks defensively, "What's so funny?"

I click my tongue at them, and lick my thumb to attempt to wipe off the smiley face drawn on the back of her nearly bald scalp, but it looks like it's drawn on in permanent marker. Suddenly, the loudspeaker screeches alive, dramatic music playing while Chris speaks, standing next to Chef.

He says, "Hello, campers!"

Duncan let's put a humorless chuckle, saying, "That's ex-campers to you."

Heather adds, "Yeah. Your twisted game is over. Remember?"

Chris not-so-subtley whispers to Chef, "We'll see about that."

The two men chuckle like they did in the episode I was eliminated, and I immediately get suspicious.

I narrow my eyes at them, asking, "What're you two chuckleheads laughing about? Knowing you, it's nothing good."

Chris responds, "Oh, you'll find out soon enough." He winks at Chef, and continues, "Congratulations to our winner. Owen, you played hard, fought hard, are hard, and farted harder! Not sure why, but you beat every other person on this island, and your pockets will soon be stuffed with cheddar!"

Most of us cheer, and Owen says in a dazed, hungry voice, "Mm, cheddar."

Chris continues, "But what I'm about to offer you may change all that." He brings out a briefcase exclaiming, "Inside this suitcase is one. Million. Dollars!" He hands the briefcase over to Chef, who leaves as Chris adds, "We had our PAs make a cardboard check of this awesome prize."

He makes a gesture with his hand, and a helicopter drags in a check taller than a 2-story building.

Chris yells over the loud whirring of the helicopter blades, "We went through a lot of cardboard to make this!" The helicopter leaves, and he continues at a normal volume, "Owen, my man. This million dollars could be yours. All you have to do is figure out where we're about to hide it and bring it to the Dock of Shame before anyone else does."

Gwen asks, "You're telling us that we all have a chance to win a million dollars?"

I add, "With no new challenges, just finding where it's hidden?"

Chris responds, "Yup." What do you say, Owen? Will you settle for 100 Gs or one. Million. Dollars?!"

Owen appears to think for a moment before exclaiming, "Game on, baby!"

He laughs, and his $100,000 check is ripped in half before he gets a chance to spend a single penny.

Chris says, "That's the spirit, Owen. Throughout the day, I'll give you all hints from the loudspeakers just to make sure you're not completely lost." He pulls out a corked wine bottle, adding "Alright, campers. The ultimate million dollar challenge starts... now!"

He pulls to cork from the wine bottle, and it shoots into the air, sniping a seagull above.

It was at it falls to the ground, but Owen is unfazed, exclaiming, "Woohoo! Here I come, million dollars!"

He laughs, and Heather asks, "Let me get this straight. After messing with our heads for an entire summer, you expect us to start running around the island like idiots all over again?"

Chris responds smugly, "That's right."

Leshawna asks, "But how do we know you didn't stuff that suitcase with bricks or something?"

Chris responds, "You don't."

Noah says, "I'd love to play another round of "Humiliate the Teens", but I've got a buffet to eat."

I add, "And I'm not about to act like a chicken with its head cut off just to please you again."

Duncan adds, waving a hand to dismiss Chris, "Aw, sit on it"

Eva exclaims, "Yeah!"

Chris says, "Fine. Suit yourselves. I'm sure Owen will be happy to have no competition while he makes the easiest million dollars in TV history."

Gwen exclaims, "Fine!"

Lindsay adds, "Fine!"

Justin adds, "Yeah, right."

Owen exclaims, "Alright! I'm gonna be rich!"

He cheers and whoops, and we all look at each other, trying to pretend that we don't want that money. We all eventually run off toward Owen, all 23 of us crashing and crumbling into a large heap on the floor.

Chef whistles loudly to get out attention as we all argue over each other, and Beth takes the opportunity to exclaim, "Hey! I've got an idea! Let's work together as a team! We can split the prize twenty-three ways and share it!"

I say, "There's so way to evenly split it that way! We'd all be better off splitting into smaller teams or just going off on our own!"

We eventually untangle ourselves after a while of more arguing, and we split off into teams.

Courtney exclaims, grabbing her boyfriend's hand, "Ah! Let's go get that million dollars! Yes!"

She kisses Duncan passionately, and after they split, he says, "Sir, yes sir!"

Harold asks, "Can I come, too?"

Courtney quickly responds, "No! You'll slow us down!"

Owen, Tyler, Cody, Trent, and DJ are the next ones to team up, Owen exclaiming, "Aw, a guys-only team! This is awesome!"

Tyler adds, "Yeah! Guys rule! I've been hitting the weights since I got here. Working on my fiercenessness."

Eva shove him to the ground, saying, "Get over yourself."

Izzy, trailing behind the bodybuilder, exclaims through laughter, "That was funny! You stupid guy!"

Noah joins the two, making for quite the odd pairing. Next was Beth and Lindsay, the former asking the latter, "Do you wanna be my team member?"

Lindsay gasps, responding, "Totally!"

Ezekiel asks, "Can I come, too?"

Beth responds, "Okay, but you have to be respectful of us girls. Deal?"

Ezekiel responds, "Yeah, okay!"

Heather walks up to the trio, pulling my arm with hers as she says, "Ladies, it's your lucky day. Carmen and I are gonna help you find this million dollars."

Beth says, "No thanks, Heather. We might've agreed to having only Carmen join, but we have enough people already."

I say, "That's okay, Beth. Have fun." I turn to my girlfriend, saying, "C'mon, Hetty. Let's just-"

She interrupts me, exclaiming, "Excuse me? Lindsay?"

The ditzy blonde responds, "Sorry, Hannah. Good luck, though."

Heather asks, "You're bringing Homeschool with you, but not me?"

Lindsay responds, "Uh huh."

Beth adds, "Oh, and P.S., someone drew a happy face on the back of your head."

The two girls laugh as they walk away, the sexist, transphobic nose picker trailing behind them.

I say, "It's okay, Heather. We can try to find another team to join, and if worst comes to worst, we could always just go for the million together. Just the two of us."

Heather smiles, and we walk over to the trio that was teasing Heather behind her back. The people who have been my friends nearly the whole time I've been on the island, and also the people that, arguably, have faced the worst from Heather. Leshawna, Trent, and Gwen.

We walk up to them, and Heather says in a friendly voice, "Hey, guys! I realize that we've had our minor differences, but what do you say we team up? We're the 5 strongest players. Together, we'd be unstoppable."

Leshawna asks through stifled laughter, "You frontin' me? I might be willing to take Carmen, but I'd rather stick a tire iron up my butt than team up with you.

Heather drops her friendly facade, exclaiming, "Oh, yeah? Well, at least I'm not a big-butted, loud-mouthed, mall-shopping homegirl!"

Leshawna exclaims, "Uh, uh! You are not waving your fingers in my face!"

Gwen exclaims, "Come on! We're losing precious time!"

I say, "Yeah, Heather. We're already teamed up together, and you don't want to get tossed off a cliff again, do you?"

She rolls her eyes, and Leshawna exclaims as she leaves with her teammates, "Ooh, she's gonna get it! You watch!"

Katie and Sadie team up with Justin, and Bridgette teams up with Geoff.

As everyone starts leaving, already partnered up, Heather calls out, "Guys. Guys? Ugh. Ugh! Oh, forget it." Harold, the only person still standing, walls over to us, but before he can say a word, Heather already refuses him, saying, "No."

I take her aside and whisper to her, "Babe, you wanted another teammate, right? He's the only one left. Now, to be honest, I don't like him, nor do I want him on our team, but..." I sigh, adding, "If you want, we can leave him behind when we get the briefcase."

Heather smirks, planting a kiss on my cheek before we turn to Harold.

She sighs, saying, "Fine. But don't talk to me!"

Harold says, "Thank-"

Heather exclaims, "What did I just say?!"

We start walking toward the woods, and Harold mutters, "Fine! Gosh!"

After two hours, nobody found any signs of the briefcase, and Chris comes in the loudspeaker, saying, "Okay, this is pathetic, campers! It's been two hours now, and no one has even come close to finding this suitcase! So here's your first clue; it's just hangin' around!"

Harold starts whistling after a while, and Heather's twitches before she says through clenched teeth, "Shut. It."

Harold stops whistling and mutters, "Okay, gosh!"

After a while, we overheard the boys team, and hide behind a bush to watch as DJ exclaims, "There it is! I see it!"

Cody asks, "Where?"

DJ responds, "Right there in the tree!"

Chris says over the loudspeaker as Tyler starts climbing the tree the briefcase is tied to, "Finally!'

Tyler, Owen, and DJ exclaim, "Yes!"

Cody adds, "That's what I'm talking about!"

DJ adds, "You da man!"

Cody adds, "Go for it!"

Owen adds, "Yeah! You're the man!"

Tyler's weight breaks a thin tree branch, and he falls to the ground, saying, "Almost had it."

He tries again, Cody exclaiming, "Go for it!"

DJ adds, "You da man!"

Owen laughs, adding, "Yeah! You're still the man! Yeah. Still the man."

Tyler falls onto the ground again, this time with the briefcase.

DJ exclaims, "Yes!"

Cody adds, "We're rich!"

Owen adds, "We did it! Woohoo!"

Heather asks Harold and I, "Did you hear what I just heard?"

I say, "Yup. You know what this means for us?"

Harold says, "Darn it. We lost!"

Heather shushes him, saying, "Shh. This is not over yet. Are you up for a little burglary action?"

I responds, "Always, babe. Harold?"

The nerdy teen nods, responding, "Definitely. This one time, at computer camp-"

Heather shushes him again, saying, "Zip."

Tyler, Cody, Owen and DJ chant in songsongy voices, "We found the million! We found the million!"

Owen grabs the briefcase and starts kissing it, exclaiming, "Dock of Shame, here we come!" The other boys look at him suspiciously, and he asks, "What?"

DJ asks, "Why should you carry it?"

Tyler asks, "What difference does it make?"

Cody responds, "Chris did say that the first person on the dock with the case wins."

DJ asks, "No offense, but who says you won't take off with the money?"

Owen holds out the briefcase, saying, "Okay, then you carry it."

Cody asks, "What if he ditches us, and makes a run for it?"

Tyler exclaims, "This is crazy! How are we all gonna keep an eye on each other?"

They all think for a moment before Cody says, "I know!" He finds a rope and ties it around their whole team, saying, "There!" He chuckles, adding, "That should hold. Now there's no breaking up this team."

Tyler exclaims, "Yes! Alright, let's put this baby to bed."

They start apologizing over each other until Owen not-so-sneakily rips one.

DJ exclaims, "Aw, man!"

Tyler adds, fanning the air in front of him in disgust, "Aw!"

Cody asks, "Who cut the cheese?"

God, they're dumb. Who do they think?

The perpetrator says nervously, "Uh, guys? I kinda have to go."

DJ says casually, "So turn around and take a whiz. We're all dudes here."

Owen says, "No. Not number one." He farts again, adding, "Number poo."

They all make exclamations of disgust, and DJ says, "Head for the woods, dude. Just make sure you put some serious distance between us."

Tyler adds, "Yeah, we'll wait here."

When Owen stays in the circle Cody tied them into, DJ exclaims, "You've gotta unite yourself first, man!"

Owen exclaims, "I can't!"

They all start tugging at the knots, DJ asking, "Where'd you learn these knots, the army?!"

Cody responds, "Actually, it was a special after school-"

DJ points a finger at Owen, exclaiming, "And you! Why didn't you go before we tied ourselves together?"

Owen responds, "Well, I didn't have to go then!" He farts again,saying frantically, "Aw, come on, guys. This is serious!"

DJ says with a look of dread on his face, "You're just gonna have to... go."

The boys look at each other with similar looks, and they conveniently set down the briefcase next to the bush Heather, Harold, and I are hiding behind, while looking for another bush for Owen to pop a squat on. The three of us look at each other in shock, and Harold grabs the case while the boys are distracted.

We book it back towards camp, and once we're out of earshot of the boys, Heather says, "I've gotta say, Harold. That was a pretty sweet move."

Harold smirks at the praise, saying, "I learned it from a mail order ninja catalog from nunchuckers.com."

I say, "Didn't ask, don't care."

Heather adds, "Let's move!" We finally make it to a large chasm over the lake, and Harold starts fiddling around with an old, abandoned tent's cloth and a couplr branches, making something surprisingly useful.

Heather says, "I'm actually impressed, Harold. Where did you learn to make a hangglider out of branches and an old tent?"

Harold simply responds, "I told you I had skills. You need me."

Heather corrects him, saying, "I needed you. This is where we split up!"

She grabs the briefcase from Harold and shoves him away, and he exclaims, "Hey! What are you doing?!"

Heather hands the briefcase to me and we both hold onto the hangglider as she asks, "You didn't really think we were gonna split the money with you, did you?"

Harold responds, "Kinda."

We take flight on the glider, and I call back at him, "Sorry, not sorry, Harold!"

Heather adds, "If you learn one lesson from this, it's who to-"

Before she could finish her sentence, the glider breaks, leaving the two of us in a freefall, screaming.

I accidentally drop the case as we land on a beaver's den, Heather's head lodged inside, and my arm being pulled and chewed on aggressively.

We exclaim in pain, but I manage to say, "Heather, I dropped the case when we fell!"

Heather exclaims, "No! No! That was a million dollars, you stupid beavers!"

As we continue getting smacked and bitten by aggressive beavers, Chris says in the loudspeakers, "Attention, campers! The case is wet! Repeat, the case is wet!"

I manage to pull my arm free, Heather exclaiming, "Get off me, you rabies-carrying glorified rat! Ugh, stop that!"

I hear Trent, Gwen, and Leshawna talking as they walk along the bank, and the first words I can hear is Gwen asking, "Hey, isnt that Heatger and Carmen?"

Leshawna responds, "Looks like it."

Heather exclaims in pain again as I try to pry her free from the den, and she gets smacked again.

Leshawna says, "Ooh, now that's gotta hurt."

Gwen adds, "Wow. Beavers can be mean."

Leshawna adds, "I bet she wishes she wasn't wearing those teeny shorts now."

I call out, "Hey! Maybe instead of mocking her, you could get over here and help us?"

Heather adds, "Help! Guys, get me out of here!"

Trent turns to the two others, asking, "Should we help her?"

A moment of silence passes before all three of them burst out in laughter, Leshawna saying, "That's a good one."

They start walking away, and Heather exclaims, "You guys are so dead when I get outta here!"

After I manage to pry my girlfriend from the beaver den, Chris announces over the loudspeaker, "Attention, campers! The case is now somewhere beautiful and headed towards camp!"

I say, "Hey, sounds like Justin's got the case! If we can get you outta here quick, we can intercept him! I'm immune to his charms, so it'd be perfect!"

Heather says, "Whatever. We've wasted enough time here."

We start walking alongside the bed of water towards camp, and Harold eventually meets back up with us, rowing on a kayak he must've stolen from camp.

He asks, "Encountered some beavers, eh? Yeah, they can get pretty territorial, especially-"

Heather interrupts him, exclaiming, "You know what? So far today, I've been thrown off a cliff with my partner. By you! Attacked by beavers, left to die, and I lost one million dollars, which I'm kind of hoping to get back. So I really don't have time for your Harold-ness right now, okay?"

Harold says, "You know, you don't always have to be so mean."

Heather stops walking and angrily asks, "Excuse me?"

Harold continues, "Maybe if you were nicer, someone here other than Carmen might actually like you."

Heather exclaims, "People like me! I'm popular!"

Harold asks, "Then how come no one wanted you on their team?"

I say, "No one wanted you either."

Heather adds, "Yeah, you're alone. What's your damage?"

She sits down on a large rock, and Harold says, "I'm alone by choice. I'm kinda like a lone wolf."

Heather's expression softens, and she says quietly, "I don't like being mean all the time. It's kind of become this habit of mine." I sit down next to her and wrap my arm around her shoulder as she starts tearing up, asking, "Do you think it's fun being the one that everyone hates?" She curls up her knees to her chest and starts crying, exclaiming, "Look at me! I don't even have any hair!"

She leans into my touch, resting her head on my shoulder as she continues crying, and I can tell that it's real. She can be a good actress when she wants to be, but I can tell that she's not lying or acting right now.

Harold says, "Maybe you're so afraid that everyone will reject you, that you push them away first. I'm guessing either your parents are divorced or you were fat and pimply once."

Heather wipes her tears and sniffles, asking, "So how'd you become such an expert?"

Harold responds, "Believe it or not, I wasn't always this cool."

I ask, "So there was a time you were even nerdier?"

Heather giggles, resting her hand on mine and grabbing hold of it.

Harold adds, "Plus, I read a lot of my sister's psych books in the can. Want a ride?"

Heather asks, "You'd still team up with me after the way I treated you?"

I say to her, "I remember a time when I did the same thing, babe."

Harold says, "Yeah. For a 50-25-25 split. It's either that or a 5 kilometer walk to camp. And those beavers are probably still looking for you."

I stand up and help my girlfriend stand as she says, "Impressive extortion skills. Deal."

Harold asks, "Do you think we'll be friends after this is all over?"

Heather responds, "Definitely."

When we sit down behind Harold in the kayak, Heather looks at me and shakes her head. I chuckle, and we grab oars to paddle back toward camp faster.

When the camp's shore is in sight, Chris's announces over the loudspeaker, "The case is almost at the campgrounds! Get your butts in gear, people! It's a million big ones!"

We start rowing faster, and when we finally reach the shore, "Harold points above the campgrounds, asking, "Is that a hot air balloon?"

I look up and sure enough, there's Courtney in one of the hot air balloons the cameramen use sometimes, with the boys team above with the case, and Courtney holding Cody in a headlock, and a bear climbing the mic's cord up to the hot air balloon's basket.

I exclaim, "They've got the case!"

Heather adds, "And a... bear. Come on!"

We get out of the kayak and run toward the hot air balloon, and Leshawna rides out of the woods on an ATV she must've stolen from either Chris or Chef, Gwen and Trent riding behind Leshawna on the ATV, an angry expression on her face as she notices us.

She exclaims, "Yo, Heather! This is for calling me a big-butted, loudmouth, mall-shopping homegirl!"

Gwen asks and Leshawna revs the ATV's motor, "Leshawna, what are you doing?!"

Trent says, "I think we better get off."

They scream as they jump off, and Leshawna takes off full speed toward my girlfriend, and also endangering Harold and I since we're right next to Heather. We take off in the opposite direction and reach the Dock of Shame, jumping toward the safety of Lake Wawanakwa.

Leshawna isn't able to stop the ATV before she also plunges it into the water, and Heather exclaims, "She's crazy!"

I add, slinging my soggy bangs to the back of my head, "Was she trying to kill us?!"

Harold exclaims in awe, "That was awesome!"

Chris says over the loudspeakers, "Attention, campers! The case is still in play! Don't give up now!"

Geoff, Bridgette, Katie, and Sadie climb the tall diving board above the pool of green jelly from the episode where we had to face our fears to avoid a moose chasing them, Duncan scared off the moose with a taxidermied moose head, and the boys team jump from the hot air balloon to the divingboard to get away from the bear.

Courtney gloated about having the case until the bear climbed into the hot air balloon's basket, and she also jumped onto the diving board. They all fought over the case, and Leshawna climbed onto it after the case, and the fight knocked it over to the communal bathroom, where Lindsay, Beth, and Ezekiel found it.

Justin jumped from a stolen plane that was used in the fears episode, and he parachuted down and charmed the case away from Lindsay, his parachute draping over Beth and Ezekiel as the now empty plane crashes into the diving board, making it start wobbling unsteadily. Izzy, Noah, and Eva, dressed in the stupid camo outfits from the paintball deer hunter episode, toss buckets of chum at Justin, and he flails around, freaking out about his hair.

Izzy places an empty bucket over his head and steals the case, calling herself E-scope, but trips while running toward the dock, and drops the case. It starts bouncing toward the dock, and everyone starts running after it, Duncan riding on the moose, Beth having freed herself from under the parachute, and Justin walking around blindly, the parachute pack still on his back.

The diving board finally falls, dumping Courtney, Cody, Katie, Sadie, and Tyler into the incredibly gross green jelly that's still there from the fears episode that happened a couple weeks ago, and the others left on the diving board slide helplessly toward the dock. The parachute gets caught under the diving board, dragging Justin along with them, the bucket falling off his head from the sudden tug.

The moose launched Duncan off it's back and into the water, and just as me, Heather, and Harold got out of the lake and back onto the dock, we're shoved right back in by everyone on the diving board. We all surface - Heather, Harold, Leshawna, Lindsay, Beth, Duncan, Owen, DJ, Gwen, Izzy (E-scope?) and I - and the case gets eaten whole by a shark.

Leshawna exclaims angrily, "Great! Now what?!"

Chris walks toward us on the dock, saying, "So... you lost the case. Way to go."

I say, "Technically, the shark did it."

Chris continues, ignoring me, "I didn't wanna have to do this, but since none of the 15 of you officially won, you all officially tied, which means that you will all have another shot at winning the million dollars!" We all cheer until he adds, "In season 2!"

I ask angrily, "I'm sorry, what? Are you freakin' kidding me?"

Duncan adds, "Oh, forget this. I didn't agree to season 2."

Chris says, pulling out one of his many copies of our huge stack of legal forms, "Actually, you did. It's called the fine print. Read it, live it, love it!"

Gwen growls, "I hate the fine print."

Chris's addresses the ex-campers that finally arrived on the Dock of Shame, "As for the rest of you, your treasure hunt ends here, along with all your hopes of ever winning any money off of being on this show. The good news, though? You'll be watching all the action on season 2 from the sidelines!"

I mutter, "Lucky bastards."

Courtney exclaims, "Wait a minute! I wanna be on season 2!"

Chris smirks and clicks his tongue in a teasing way, repeating, "Fine print."

E-scope exclaims, "Yes, this is so awesome! E-scope is coming back! E-scope is coming back!"

She giggles, and Beth and Lindsay embrace, Beth exclaiming, "This is so exciting! Lindsay, if you win and you buy France, will you invite me over?"

Lindsay responds, "For sure!"

Heather and I look at each other, and I say, "At least we'll be together for next season, right?"

Heather smiles at me and puts her forehead to mine, responding, "Definitely, babe."

Chris says, "In exactly 2 days, you'll all report to a brand new location for a whole new challenge and the last one standing will receive one. Million. Dollars!" He turns to the cameras, adding, "So don't forget to tune in... to Total. Drama. Action!"

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cherry-chaos-cola · 3 years ago

Text

cut my hair short like I've wanted to for years and instead of the gender euphoria I thought I'd have I'm sitting in the dark, sobbing in my room. So I'm just going to ramble my thoughts

I love my haircut. I've wanted this haircut since I was 12, before probably, when I saw Thalia Grace join the Hunters of Artemis and forsake men. (At the time the idea that hunter/hunter relationships could happen was something I clung onto so bad, and I still do. Mythology backs me up, RR) It took me nearly 10 years to actually get someone to cut it for me. It's always been a struggle of oh we can't go too short :) you'll look like a boy :) :) I don't regret getting my haircut. I love it so much, it feels nice.

But it doesn't feel the way I thought it would.

I had long pinkish brown hair before this summer (dyed it pink without bleaching, let it fade) I cut it off in May, but again the stylist who was so nice and so sweet and my sister's friend's mother left it a little too long so I could still style it. So I could still look like a girl. With my "they/them is plural" and "why are there so many trans/gay kids in this tiny rural county" mother in the room (until I yelled at her in the car once because singular they is grammatically correct and is used in every day life, and she's smart enough to know that. she did agree with me then, at least) I couldn't ask for shorter.

They were gossiping about the ballet studio I used to dance at. I never fit in with those girls. I never looked pretty or was flexible or danced very well. I felt my best dancing my senior year as the Beast/Prince in Beauty and the Beast when we had no guys at the studio, but I was so jealous of all the rest of them in pretty tutus and pointe shoes I had paid so much time and blood and money for that I never got to dance in.

It's been four years since then. I still mourn who I could have been, who I can never be again because my body stopped working that way. As if my chronic illness is what's keeping me from being one of them, not everything else.

I don't know what snapped in me that I wanted to finally cut my hair now. I bleached it the night before, and it came out surprisingly well. Bleach blond(e), but the semi permanent pink had been soaked into my hair so long that even with the bleach, it turned pink in places. It turned a beautiful, feminine, ballet slipper pink that I couldn't have gotten if I tried. I was going to dye the rest of it pink again, this time on bleached hair so it would be more vibrant. Mostly bleach blond(e), though.

And yet, after washing away the chemicals that hurt my lungs and burnt my skin, it wasn't what I wanted. I joked that it looked like Draco Malfoy, but really, it scared me. I looked into the mirror that night and I didn't see a girl. I saw a boy, the kind of boy I very much did not want to be. The kind of boy that scared me and hurt me and bullied me in high school without even really knowing or caring that I existed. The kind of boy that all my straight and bi friends would date and get abused by and his impact on their lives still comes in the form of therapy appointments and fucks up their current relationships.

I looked into the mirror and knew I didn't want to be a boy, ever, and I never want people to think of me as a boy.

Expect for that person that called me he/him in a Link cosplay. Or the little kids from the dance studio that only knew me as the prince from beauty and the beast.

It's like, if people see me as a boy without hesitation, that's cool. But if they look at me and think they know I'm trans, that's what I don't want. It's like, they don't see a boy if they see that. They see a girl who hates herself and being a girl so much she's masquerading as someone she's not, and she's not doing it well. I've seen the way they interact with my friends, the oops sorry he's and the let's go guys—wait, can I even say that anymore? They see me as a boy in a girl way, but not in the fun genderqueer fuckery kind of way, but with cisgender sorrow and pity.

I'm not a boy. I want to be a girl. I want to be a girl, but some part of me knows I'm not. I just want to be a girl and I want to love other girls and I don't want to deal with the inherent not-girlness that modern lesbianism has forced upon itself, that's always been there and never been there, I don't want to go into my lesbian literature class anymore because now I'm not just another gay girl in a lesbian English lit class, I'm a ??? and my identities will be questioned by people who have no answers either. I'll tell them I'm a girl, and they'll give me a look like "okay 😏 but when you start falling down the she/her to she/they... to he/him pipeline I'm going to say I told you so with so much condescendence any joy I have for making you 'one of us' is going to feel worthless".

I hate my haircut. I miss my long hair. I want a boyfriend I can brag about choosing despite all the pretty girls in the world. I want to fit in with the girls who I went out to bars with once, who I went to pride with but felt like the token obvious queer so they could validate their own place on the sidelines of the parade while their perfect boyfriends texted them I love yous. I don't want to be their toy model so they can use me to carve out a place in a community they already belong in, when I'm still too scared to hold my girlfriend's hand but I'm fine wearing a flag that I don't even know if it's "problematic" because someone will always find something wrong with me being a girl with a girlfriend, even among people who say they're just like me.

If I'm even a girl (and if my gf is even a girl, which is a whole other issue I've only heard the beginning of)

I love my haircut, because people are going to look at me and think I'm hot now. I stand out. I draw attention. I'm on the exec board of three clubs, I have positions of power and will stand out even more. I'll be recognizable and unforgettable. As I end the so called "trial period" and am getting ready to be a "real adult", I want one last chance before I blend into the real world never to be seen again. I love and hate my haircut because of how other people will see me now.

I had always wanted to cut it for myself. So I thought.

I love my haircut, but people are going to look at me and ask for my pronouns in a way they never did when I had long hair. When I actually felt more attached to being non-binary, when I felt less like a girl. I feel more like a girl than I ever have, and now no one is going to believe me.

#I've never felt more connection to the label of trans or nonbinary but at the same time I've never felt less #I am really interested in the subject of the lesbian literature class but man am I DREADING the people who are going to be in it #I know what I signed up for. but if I have so sit through a Socratic Seminar arguing the existence of nb lesbians I think I will Scream #like. I've already heard from one girk who took the class that it's pretty heavy and triggering material. and from another that she didn't #understand non-binary lesbians before taking the class #how do I explain now that's I'm still nonbinary. but I'm a girl. and in my situation that's a really nonbinary thing to be #it's not gender dysphoria it's more like... gender mourning. gender expectations vs reality #I stopped crying which is nice I'm glad I wrote my thoughts out #I want to share because I have never seen a POV like this and who knows. maybe someone else is going through it tonight

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theliterateape · 3 years ago

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Pro-Life: A Call to Action!

By David Himmel

Now that it’s done—that great stain on the American Experiment that was a guaranteed right to safe parental planning through a woman’s—a family’s—ability to choose—it’s time for the Pro-Life Movement to take action and really lean into that Pro-Life Lifestyle.

Getting Roe v. Wade overturned has been the Pro-Life Movement’s main mission for half a century, and, finally, thanks to demented reasoning using, cherry-picked and distorted bits of history, six selfish Christian judges gave the Movement the victory generations have been praying for. Striking down rights to privacy, autonomy, and personal freedom? Let’s celebrate! But then let’s get to work. Because now the real work begins.

Overturning Roe was easy. A few marches, some trips to D.C., a phone call or email to a representative, voting for packaged Christian values. But mostly, it was an exercise in patience. The waiting game. The long game. Waiting long enough for the right kind of assholes to nominate the other right kind of assholes to be confirmed by another group of the right kind of assholes so the second group of assholes could find shoddy legal arguments to take American rights away. And all just shy of fifty years! Good job!

Now, with the Right to Life/Forced Birth established, we’re sure to see the Pro-Life Movement get on to the next order of business: Marching, protesting, campaigning, and fighting for the needs of so many American families trying to eek out a living. Here’s a short list to help get you good Christians started:

Affordable and effective healthcare

Affordable childcare

Quality, unbiased public education. That is, keeping all religious teachings and influences out of the classroom. (If you’d hate to hear a Jewish prayer before math class, best not to push for a Christian one—all things being equal.) Private schools can indoctrinate at will, of course.

Paid parental leave for all parents (men, women, gay, lesbian, non-binary, etc.)

Common sense gun control. You know, because guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens

Income equality

Fair housing and reasonable living wage minimums that evolve with the market

These are all things central to the Pro-Life Lifestyle. Without them, life is harder, sicker, shorter. History and science have shown us that prayer does not help an overworked single mother. Daycare does. Prayer doesn’t help a sick dad recover from cancer. Healthcare does. Prayer doesn’t keep AR-15s from being pointed at children’s heads before ejecting a bullet to vaporize the skull. Making weapons of war unavailable for sale does. Prayer doesn’t lift a family up by the bootstraps. Generational wealth does. So, too, does income equality.

Pro-lifers, you’ve done a heckuva job making it known how much you love to see women being pregnant and give birth. But you’ve been pretty quiet on all the stuff that comes after that. And, well, actually, pretty quiet on the stuff that comes with being pregnant like access to quality healthcare, but I digress. Point is, I understand why you haven’t made a fuss about these other pro-life issues. You had to get the elephant in the womb out of the proverbial cervix first. So, now’s that time! I can’t wait to see which of the aforementioned pro-life touchstones you champion at next year’s March for Life in D.C.

Sheesh, I might even join you there.

#Pro-life #Abortion #anti-abortion #Christians #Hypocrisy #Roe v Wade #March for Life

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divagonzo · 4 years ago

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Little bit of Ace History***

... for those who are doing headcanons for Pride month.

*** History being from the last generation. So... recent history.

***************

While Asexual was in the grad school text books, it was, as a queer orientation, on the fringes for considerably longer than Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans. It wasn’t spoken of except in queer spaces and even then, it was more of an after-thought. Like the Mesopotamians (and Mayans independently) - people couldn’t and, somewhat, can’t fathom those who don’t feel sexual attraction (or those who don’t feel romantic attraction or some who have no attraction romantically or sexually.)

Since society is built on populations, the presumption that everyone wants sex or engages in it and those who don’t are aberrant - is a hindrance to those of us who don’t feel it (or, like some, like the idea in theory but not in practice, or those who it’s once in a lifetime (my spouse) or those who have to know someone for a long period of time before thinking, “Would I consider getting physical with them?” (aka Me!) or those who have sexual repulsion - and they are as valid as anyone else under the Asexual spectrum umbrella.)

Asexual was, originally, under the Bisexual umbrella - and like many Bi people of the earlier eras (and sadly still happening) being told they aren’t queer enough for A) The community and B) not Gay enough to be included. (Hence my absolute loathing to gatekeepers for having gone through it back in the early 90s!) Toss in the derision towards bi/pan people who “are selfish/greedy/can’t make up their mind / teases / etc” and you have a boiling pot of potential gatekeeping, especially for those who could really use some informational resources so they know that they aren’t broken & nothing is wrong with how they are.

Yes, Asexual was listed on the fringes but it wasn’t until the early Naughts that the word even made it to notice - much less being more accepted openly. But the biggest kicker is that while being Gay was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Model (what is used by American Psychiatry for diagnosing not normal behavior) in 1973..... being Asexual wasn’t removed until 2013.

Yes, you read that right. 2013. The first published college text on Asexuality wasn’t published until 2012 - and written from a heterosexual white male perspective (and it’s a bit rubbish by comparison to casual anecdotes from those in the community and on AVEN. I know. I bought the book and read it.) While the elderly spinster dowager is more socially acceptable, being a man/male and being Ace in a society that says that men have to be hypersexual.... is harmful to them, too, especially when they are too hindered to be able to come out and say, “I don’t feel sexual attraction to anyone.”

Having no sexual attraction to others was considered aberrant behaviors. And for some, it still is, especially those who think that Ace people (and Aros too, y’all aren’t being forgotten!) should be sexually available to anyone and everyone - and some sods think that the attitude of “You’ve not met the right one” or “I’ll f* you to fix you” is helpful and not actively oppressive or harmful.

Obviously (insert professional quality eyeroll here) people need medications because they don’t want to f* every walking human who passes by - which is toxic even in a hypersexual society. There must be something wrong with them if they aren’t out at a bar looking for a casual hook-up / one night stand.

Why do I bring this up?

I read a posting and it mentioned a fictional character being out as AroAce in 1994.

Jessica Rabbit was a thing back in 1988. But the terms for her besides the negative ones weren’t there ‘til a decade later, if not longer.

While I love the idea that this knowledge was available in the era, I have to take Umbridge (while not detracting from their post) that this is vastly incorrect and harmful to those of us who lived through this era and struggled for decades (yes, I said decades) to know that being Ace is fine and dandy. It’s hard to research harder when you don’t even know a starting point to go look this information up - especially when it was mostly limited to just blooming Queer studies courses in colleges and everything was either published journals or hidden inside academic speak of graduate schools. (I took a couple of undergrad psychology classes and I went back and looked and the terms weren’t even in the books. This was 1995, for those in Rio Linda and Blackpool.)

There’s plenty of my peers who are just now coming to understand that the feelings of dissociation, loathing, guilt, apathy aren’t because they are with the wrong person. It’s performative behavior towards others and personally harmful. It’s letting people f* you so they are content when it’s personally harmful (especially if consent isn’t completely clear.

What would have been said in 1994 was that “he must be gay” even if he was dating a girl and nothing was happening physically. “She must be his beard” would have been said too if performative behaviors weren’t happening. Why? Because being Asexual wasn’t a thing in the era AT ALL. It wasn’t even considered.

Hell, even now there are people*** who will not believe you when you say that you don’t want to have sex - as men or women or non-binary. No, they must fix you by non-consenting means & their warped logic for the resultant trauma will magically make you want to have sex with people.

Ewwww. Hell no.

I have someone I know who has been repeatedly subjected to their consent being violated when they said no - because they are Ace and people (both of the binary for this person) refused to take No for an answer and.... well, you can fill in the blanks.

Or the not funny bits of “Oh you must be a potato” and other derision of you not being potentially sexually available for other people. This especially goes for those who are Heteroromantic Ace people - like family I have.

I was the first one they came out to, because I’ve been pretty loud about it in SM spaces. They felt safe to say such to me, especially with an, “OK. Cool” reply to it.

I didn’t want them to struggle mentally and emotionally (when they were already neurodivergent) thinking something was wrong with them by not wanting to have icky squicky physical relationships. But by being there, armed with knowledge now it saved them decades of grief and emotional turmoil.

My radical kindness is being the space the baby aces need so they can have a human resource for them, so they know they aren’t broken, that they are valid and accepted, and that they don’t have to behave in certain ways to feel accepted - especially in the queer community.

So yeah, sex might be cool but how about acceptance of people who lived in the era who didn't have the world at their fingertips to know themselves, much less the language to even have a label that fit.

#Ace discourse #Ace History #cw:#cw: generic mentions of non-consenting behaviors #I didn't wish to detract from the Cho post #but I couldn't let it slide either #it rankles me that some think that the knowledge has always been widely know #and accepted #when that's a load of rubbish

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obey-me-ocs · 4 years ago

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Oc information

All basic information about my Oc's, will post more later if people are interested. All pictures are from picrews! Ask if you would like the links!

Fang

Sexuality/gender: Agender (Uses all pronouns, mainly he/him), Androsexual

Personality: He's a little shit, often messing around and doesn't take anything very seriously.

Likes: Partying, and being with people.

Dislikes: Paperwork, The celestial realm

Background/General Info: Their a shapeshifter, often shifting into different forms when ever they feel like it. They are an envy white snake demon, and would uses their shape changing abilities to make people feel jealous or make them act on their envy. He was an angel but fell a few years after the brothers did, not agreeing with the celestial realms rules and wanting more freedom.

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Marz

Gender/Sexuality: Demigirl she/they, pansexual

Personality: They can tend to be a bit emotionless, but once they get used to people they warm up quite a bit.

Like: Science, new discoveries

Dislikes: Not understanding something, and feeling like they are failing

Background/General Info: Their a clone made with a mix of science and magic, though the main people working on the project didn't know about the magic. Since a young age they have been able to sense magic, and ended up finding a magic ring. They ran away from the lab and started to be research about magic, before ending up in devildom. They continue to try and scientifically research magic, often to the detriment of themselves.

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Willow

Gender/sexuality: lesbian, cis female she/her

Personality: More closed off, but very creative and over all has a positive attitude.

Likes: styling hair, tattoos, other similar things.

Dislikes: greasy hair, rude people.

Background/general info: She a student at RAD, but has a small business. She's a hairdresser and tattoo artist but since she doesn't own a building, she goes to the customer house to do it

She's a pride demons, and has basic air magic but doesn't uses it often and isn't the best with magic but are a very skilled and fast flier.

She's not really close to any of the demon brothers, but does have a pact with solomon though their pact isn't used often. She does occasionally style his hair when asmodeus can't. She has also occasionally met mammon at his photo shoots when she was hired to do his make-up and hair.

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Aster

Gender/sexuality: demiboy he/them, sex-positive asexual, biromantic

Personality: He's lazy and very easy going, but is a mentor type as well

Likes: watching movies and lazing around, teaching, fighting

Dislikes: loud classes, and the demon king

Background/general info: He's a teacher at RAD, and teaching war history and battle magic. He used to be the best fighter in the demon king's army but hated the conflicts despite enjoying the battles. Once Lord Diavolo took control he was made to be one of the first teacher at RAD and has been teaching ever since.

He always loved teaching, and generally has a laid back attitude about it as well making him a really fun teacher. He has some of the strongest offensive magic, and his demon form has two sets of powerful wings that are covered in old battle scars and rams horns, one of which is broken off

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Reigna

Gender/sexuality: trans women, heterosexual, panromantic

Personality: cold and can seen as rude but never says or done anything outwardly cruel

Likes: themselves, smoking

Dislikes: Other nobles, her brother

Background/general info: She a noble, and a wrath demon. She used to be heir to their family but her brother convinced her parents and he should be instead. She hates that he would even think about doing it, she entered a rage and almost killed him but that just made her parents want to do it more.

She goes to RAD but almost always skips classes. She just an angsty person. Her demon form, had a large pair of butterfly wings and has a horns that wrap around the back of her head. She has strong corruption magic and tends to use it alot when her angry.

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Morry

gender/sexuality: Transgender male he/him, gay

Personality: Very chaotic, but tries to avoid people.

Likes: arcade games like... very seriously plays arcade games, and human comic books.

Dislikes: Being around a lot of people, and people who think men need to be masculine

Background/general info: He's a greed demon, and he doesn't horde money... but he does horde arcade tickets. Like one of those people who have wheel barrels filled with the tickets. He's demon form has horns similar to mammons but smaller, and he has a tail similar to a lizard.

He works at the arcade and attends RAD but mainly online. So not many other students know him, but he can get very worried when some if the student visit the arcade. He's always worried that they'll judge him or something similar

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Esperanza

Nickname: Espie

Gender/sexuality: Non-binary she/her, aromantic, pansexual.

Personality: Overall cheerful, but can tend to go off into rants when they hear even the smallest thing that are interested in.

Likes: sappy romance books, and sex-ed

Dislikes: People attempting to romance them, and just gets slightly annoyed by PDA when its in real life.

Background/general info: She's a student at RAD, and are a lower-level lust demon. she has a love for sappy romance book and the how relationships are shown in them, but doesn't like them in real life She's cheerful and enjoys making new friends, and though she prefer quieter gatherings she do enjoy going to parties. She's is close to asmodeus and Satan but can be a bit intimidated by their power at times. She doesn't have a lot of magical powers, having a pretty weak charm ability which can only really give people a small push to act on what they actual want to do.

Her demon form has small point horns that come out front the top of her head, and a shortish tail. Both are a very light pink.

----------- Miska

gender/sexuality: Intersex, Genderqueer (He/she), bisexual

Likes: Potions, magic objects Dislikes: rude people, and being interrupted

Personality: generally quiet, but is always kind

Backstory: She's a nymph, and was born in the human realm but after an incident where she lost her leg she moved to devildom. Since then he has spent most of the time focusing on research and magic. he makes magical prosthetics, making them special for each person and often giving them interesting designs or making them out of special materials.

She's never been a huge fan of demons, and despite still being kind to them can find their cruel nature very annoying. He has considered adopting a demon child and teaching them how to be kinder. She also has a fear of human since the incident as a child.

#obey me #obey me ocs #obey me shall we date #first post just didn't show up in the tags for some reason-#so reposting it

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dreamonminecraft · 5 years ago

Note

oh yes, tell me more about this beautiful lesbian slowburn. I’m a sucker for a good love story

Okay so to start off, My sexuality fluctuates greatly throughout this story, but as of now I identify as a Bisexual lithsexual lesbian, which means that I am attracted to lots of people but lose attraction when the feelings are reciprocated, and I'll only date girls.

The story starts off August of 2018. I was starting 6th grade (middle school) and didn't really have any friends aside from a few people that I had last talked to in 3rd grade.

It's important to know that I'm a GT kid and so I almost always have the same group of about 20 kids. This started when I changed to an all GT class for 4th grade.

While it's nice to have a comfortable learning environment, it also means that there's no escape from any drama, and you get to pick friends from the very small pool of kids that you'll spend the rest of your education with.

This is a pretty long story as well and I'm not sure I'll be able to accurately retell many of the things because dates get mixed up and stuff. Anyway, I'm gonna try my best to explain but these are really only the things from my point of view and I don't remember a lot of the things. (This is also gonna be written like a fanfic because that's all I know how to write, I apologise)

So start of sixth grade, I don't really have any friends, I'm kind of this awkward nerd, there's 2 people in my class (we switch classes like normal middle school, but I'm with the GT kids for most of the day so that's what I'll refer to them as) that I've known for years, a few I've met before, but mostly new people.

I sit by some old friends from volleyball at lunch for the first few days but begin to feel unwelcome. One day I decide to sit by these two people that I know are in GT but haven't talked to before. I don't say anything, but I sit and they don't mind.

The next day we get new seats in English. I'm behind a boy named Owen, Inara, who is one of the girls I sat with at lunch, is to my right, and in front of her is a girl named Emilyse.

Inara and I hit it off immediately.

It's kind of crazy because we're both crazy anxious introverts, but we gel nicely. I'm a boyband-obsessed 11 year old and she's a mature and mysterious 11 year old.

She's a lefty. I'm a righty. The way we've been placed makes us bump arms everytime we try to write anything.

We have every class together. Somehow, we sit next to each other in every class as well, even in the ones where we didn't pick our seating chart.

It's September. I cry over boybands. She watches curiously.

For the next couple of months we casually talk. She spends every lunch period in the library. We text occasionally.

I have another friend who takes priority. His name is Logan. We got introduced by his friend Lennox when she asked for my phone number to give to him.

Lennox and I don't talk. Logan and I text nonstop for months. We discuss possibly dating in the future. I identify as bisexual and biromantic at this point.

I've been in this position before. Having mainly guy friends growing up puts me in a lot of awkward friendship/relationship situations. They always end the same.

I have an issue with dating in middle school. You're not dating if you don't go on dates, hold hands, kiss, or cuddle. But you can feel like you are.

In December Logan starts being mean. We start a game where we step on each other's shoes at lunch or in the hallway. It's fun.

Eventually, he recruits his friends to do it to me, too. It's a joke a first, but eventually there are 10 middle school boys chasing me and trying to hurt me.

I get kicked in the hallway and fall. Someone steps on my arm and people laugh. Logan watches. I tell Inara and she steps on his shoe for me.

Logan and I stop talking. Inara and I hang out more. By early January, Inara has stopped going to the library at lunch. We hang out with Emilyse in the field instead.

I text Logan one day in mid January and ask why we fell out. He says that I told someone that I was going to punch him in the face.

The person he said I told, only talked to me at the bus stop, and he didn't ride my bus. I had never said it in the first place, but his logic made it even more frustrating.

I tell him I got scared because I had a crush on him and didn't want to make things weird. It was a lie.

In February I came out to someone for the first time. They asked if I was bi and I said yes.

By March I had accepted that coming out didn't really make a difference. Inara and I hung out at school but not really anywhere else.

My birthday's in April. I invite her, Emilyse, and Rebekah. We paint rocks and draw on a table cloth. Emilyse feels distant.

Emilyse is homophobic. We find out in English one day. I don't remember how. Inara and I look at each other. We know we're both queer but haven't come out to each other.

I ask Emilyse if she would hate someone in GT for coming out. She says yes. Inara and I stop talking to her.

By May I've become obsessed with Marvel. Inara's interested in it and I decide to be, too. We talk about the movies. It gets awkward. She's not as interested when I get in on it.

By June we're best friends. We hang out fairly regularly, have all our classes together, and text all the time. Logan is forgotten.

School lets out at the start of June. We keep texting regularly. We make plans to see the new spiderman movie in early July with one of our other friends.

I have a complicated relationship with said friend. They're non-binary, although I didn't know it yet, and I've known them since Kindergarten. Inara met them in an advisory this year. I get jealous easily.

The day of the movie I shop at Kohl's. I buy the two of us matching shirts. We meet at the movie theater and it's awkward. I pay for popcorn and sneak in snacks that we share. Our friend's dad is there, but Inara and I don't have parents present.

We sit next to each other during the movie. At a certain scene, I start to get anxious. My stomach hurts and I can't breathe, I start to get sweaty.

I get up and rush out of the theater. I get to the women's bathroom and sit down on the floor of the very last stall. I'm panicing, dry heaving into the toilet, and trying not to cry. I try to text my mom that I'm having a panic attack but don't have reception.

I go back into the theater room after a few minutes. I'm still anxious, but better. Our friend is highly concerned, Inara just glances at me worriedly.

It's my first panic attack, and it sucked.

We leave awkwardly after it ends, trying to avoid the obvious elephant in the room. My mom is concerned when she picks me up. We don't talk about it. My dad and brother are watching it illegally when I get home.

We don't see each other until August of 2019, but continue to text through the rest of the summer.

When 7th grade starts, I'm still into Marvel. I've seen all the movies at this point, but there haven't been any new ones (even now) since FFH. Inara's interested, but not fully.

In late August/Early September we take BuzzFeed quizzes for fun and text each other the results. I take one about soulmates. I get her initials. I send her the link. She gets mine.

We take more and they all point to us being soulmates. We propose by sending pictures of rings over text. The wedding date is set for September 28th, 2019.

The time comes. It's Saturday and my brother has a double football game. We've planned to pick her up and take her there. It's a Christian league, so the games are at a church.

We go to the garden. There's a small white bench in some rocks, surrounded by flowers. We joke that we've had our ceremony. We wander around for a while longer.

My dad suggests that we go to the taco bell across the parking lot. We do. When we're done, we walk back to my house. Its not far, but we're alone. I carry her halfway back.

When we get to my house we pick things from my garden. We're barefoot and I'm wearing overalls. I joke that we're gonna get a farm one day when we're older.

She picks things while I stand back and watch. The sun hits her dyed-red hair just right. I vividly remember smiling at thinking "holy fuck she's pretty" you would think I'd put together my crush by then.

October rolls around and she cancels plans to go trick-or-treating with me. I'm upset but understand.

We "work" on a school project at her house. We don't actually get anything done before cuddling up on her bed and falling asleep to black panther.

In November, it's Emilyse's birthday party. We've gotten distant but still talk occasionally. Inara and I both go to the party.

We're watching Spiderman Far From Home because that's what Emilyse wanted. I've seen in twice, Ianra has too.

We're given candy and popcorn and then curl up on the couch. Inara and I sit next to each other.

(I forgot to mention this but at some point she stayed the night at my house. She slept on the floor in her swimming suit even though I asked if she wanted to sleep on the bed. Swimming was fun though. We also go to an arcade. We mini-golf and play laser tag. We also danced in the rain together at some point that day.)

Once we're no more than 15 minutes into the movie, I'm cuddled into her chest. It's important to mention that at this point I'm 5'6 and she's no more than 5'0.

We cuddle the entire movie. We share candy and pretend no one else is there. It feels great.

We don't talk about that night for months. Nobody brings it up. I come out to Rebekah around this time, saying no more than that I like girls. I still haven't told Inara.

By December, I've brought her to church a few times. I don't enjoy going to church, but my parents always encouraged it.

(I'd like to say at this point as well that I have been raised Christian and identify with the faith despite the fact that I despise Church and disagree with many of the common teachings. If I ever had to choose for some reason, my sexuality matters more to me than my religion. Regardless, I respect your beliefs if they differ from mine :) )

Inara's birthday is in mid December. Her party consists of us making gay jokes with our enby friend despite not being technically out to each other.

My church youth group plans ice skating. I invite her and she accepts. I'm worried about it. It's essentially a date. Neither of our parents will be there.

We carpool with the youth leaders, who are actually pretty cute for a hetero couple. Inara and I share awkward glances the whole time.

When we get there I learn that Inara took ice skating lessons as a child. She's much more confident than I am, but pretends she doesn't know what she's doing. I skate about once or twice a season, but also rollerblade.

There's a wet, sloped, melty part of the rink. I get nervous and grab her hand. She holds it until we're out of the melted ice.

Every lap around I grab her hand at that point. Eventually, we just keep holding hands for an entire lap.

By the end of the night, we've both fallen a few times but held hands the whole time. We drop her off and I say goodnight.

That night, I rant about the adventure to one of my (ex)friends, who excitedly listens to my talk about holding hands with a girl.

There's a GT Christmas party at Hannah's. Inara and I carpool there. It's an all together boring party with the exception of a few interesting truth-or-dare questions.

(side note, remember Owen? Well he's one of Inara and I's best friends and we were actually close enough that the three of us were basically cuddling on the couch during part of the party. Also the whole class knows about Inara and I's wedding and calls us wives.)

Paislie asks me if I wanted to "marry" Inara before we got "married". I mumble an answer that nobody hears. I don't repeat it. When it's time to leave, Inara and I have our legs intertwined on the couch. We don't mention that, either. We drop her off and I say goodnight.

January is good. There's a night, the 4th I believe, that we really connect. We officially come out to each other for the first time on that night, and it gets really real, really fast.

She says she's pan, I say I'm bi but confused.

In mid January she texts me that she's crying because one of her favorite YouTubers finally hit a million. She cries for hours but never tells me who. I pay it no mind.

A few days later, she mentions a YouTube channel called Unus Annus and tells me that it's super interesting. I text back but don't look it up.

A few more days pass and I'm randomly on the trending page for YouTube, which I never do. I see a video trending called "Mark and Ethan go casket shopping". The thumbnail is interesting enough that I check what the channel is. I notice it's the one Inara told me about.

I watch the video and subscribe within 5 minutes. I text Inara quotes from that video, Ethan Finally Becomes a Man, and the Lie Detector test videos, until she responds and is surprised that I found the channel.

I obsess quickly and depend on her to know the new video at 1pm everyday. She gets annoyed and we drift apart slowly.

In February things get rocky. We fight often. If I win a small argument she doesn't talk to me for hours. She gets pissed at refuses to tell me what the Unus Annus video is called if I ask too many times.

At some point I get fed up and confront her. I don't remember what about, but we stop talking all together.

Friends pick sides. I'm left alone. We don't talk for a month. She tells me that she pushed me away because she thought I'd react badly to her telling me she loves me.

I confess my crush. She tells me she feels the same.

We finally make up at about 8:30 on a Sunday night in March. It's not fixed but we plan to talk. And 9:00, the school district announces that it's shutting down until least after spring break.

We stopped trying to communicate, but eventually, slowly we started talking again. We text a few times a day now, mostly about UA and anxiety, the best combo.

We haven't seen each other since. We're probably going back to school in person in about a month, but I'm not sure. Nobody is.

I've called her my girlfriend on here before, simply because I don't know what we are. I joked the other day about how the youth leaders would react if I said I was texting my girlfriend.

Here's how that went:

So we're just jokingly married for now! It's a confusing pile of garbage but we both came out as lesbians the other day so that's a new development.

I don't know if any of that makes sense but I'll answer any questions anybody has :)

#asks #elle has girlfriend issues #unus annus #crankgameplays #markiplier #yes the guy who hit a million was ethan #thank you kait #im sorry this is so long #lesbian #wlw post #wlw culture #LGBTQ

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gettin-bi-bi-bi · 5 years ago

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Hey Maddie, I know maybe you can't help me with this, but I don't like very much that I feel more attracted to guys than girls. And I don't know if that's bc I don't have the best history with men, but I've heard that most bisexual women end up with men, and I feel like that will be my case? I know it's probably bc of heteronormativity but, how do you even go on finding other women to meet? (Sorry if it's an obvious question, I'm new to this) thanks Maddie.

Hello,

I’ve also heard this before that bi women are more often dating men than women. However, I don’t know if that really reflects the truth. I don’t know which study had claimed to have proven that and how they got their data. So I’m taking that information with a grain of salt. Bisexual people are so invisible in our society that I think there might be a lot who are getting classified as lesbians or straight women despite actually being on the multi-spectrum.

But let’s assume that it is true that bi women are more likely to date men then the explanation is relatively simple. You already brought up heteronormativity - that is definitly one important aspect. Some women just don’t live in a place or culture where dating a woman or non-binary person is an option because being openly queer puts them in danger. Or they have internalised biphobia that prevents them from embracing their attraction to multiple genders so they stick with only dating men. There is also biphobia from within the LGBTQIA+ community that many bi women (and other bi people) find alienating and is causing them to just not engage with the queer community at all, so there is less chance of meeting queer women they could potentially be interested in dating. And then at the end of the day there’s also the simple mathematical aspect that there are more men who are attracted to women than there are women attracted to women. So the pool of potential partners is bigger on one side.

Now, about your problem..... I find it notable that you say you do not like that you prefer men and that you don’t want to “end up with one”. I don’t want to discredit your bisexual identity and I hope you don’t take it that way but I’d feel like I was omitting something if I didn’t bring up the possibility that you might not actually be attracted to men. Looking at the future and thinking “I hope I’m not one of those bi women who end up with a man” doesn’t really sound like you’re all too comfortable with your feelings towards men. Have you thought about that possibility? Maybe you have and if you’re certain that you really like men and that the issue lies elsewhere then end of discussion! I believe you and won’t argue with that. But if you’re not really sure or find yourself re-questioning that a lot then I think you should know that this could be a sign of being a lesbian. Doesn’t have to. But could.

But there are other explanations as well that don’t end in “might actually be a lesbian”. So assuming you are really attracted to men then, as you already said, your past negative experiences with men could explain why you are hesitant about dating men again. It may take some time (or maybe even help from a therapist) to work through those bad memories and to learn how to trust men again and be comfortable with your attraction to them.

Then there is also that nasty motherfucker called internalised biphobia. Many bi women feel like they aren’t allowed to identify as bi anymore if they date a man. They are afraid of “not being queer enough” and biphobes make us feel like we have to hate men and hate ourselves for being attracted to men if we want to be a part of the queer community. Bi women who have internalised that specific type of biphobia (often that is coming from within the LGBTQIA+ community) feel like they have to apologise and repent for their attraction to men and like it makes us second-class queers or “unpure”. If that is the case here with you then I’d recommend you check this post with detailed advice about internalised biphobia and keep reminding yourself that even with a strong preference for men you are 100% bisexual and biphobes can go fuck themselves.

A different (also internalised biphobic) aspect in your personal journey might be that you seem to be inexperienced with women? Are you maybe afraid you will miss out on making that experience? You can still identify as bisexual even without ever having kissed a had sex with a woman, but it’s also understandable that you may want to explore this and for the time being would like to focus on dating women, instead of men. Maybe that could even make your preference shift or even out (or maybe not, just saying: it’s a possibility). Just because you currently prefer men doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way (but it is fine if is always that way!)

How can you meet other queer women? Well, if there’s a queer space in your area, like a cafe or party or resource center with meet-up groups that could be a good start. There’s also online dating (which I’d only recommend if you’re of legal age!) and once you have built a friend circle of queer people over time you might just meet your future girlfriend through that. And generally, if you want to and can safely be more open about being interested in women (through wearing Pride colours for example or playing with some queer stereotypes in your appearance) then the lesboons and m-spec ladies might be able to spot you from afar and come running towards you ;-)

Maddie

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luckyduckwrites · 5 months ago

Text

Another Contestant Chapter 1-8: Up the Creek

Fandom: Total Drama (Cartoon)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Heather (Total Drama)/Original Character(s)

Summary:

Carmen is AFAB non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.

**AO3 & Wattpad links in masterpost pinned to the top of the blog**

Two days after the last challenge, Chris has us all gather on the beach where he explains our next challenge, "Bass, Gophers, today's challenge is a true summer camp experience. A canoe trip! You'll be paddling your canoes across the lake to ~Boney Island~! When you get there, you must portage your canoes to the other side of the island, which is about a two-hour hike through treacherous, dense jungle."

Geoff asks, "We've gotta pour what?"

Chris repeats, "Portage."

Geoff looks like he still doesn't understand, so I say, "Walk with your canoe over your head."

He finally says, "Oh."

I mutter to Heather next to me, "Wow. He didn't do well in English class, did he?"

Heather chuckles, responding, "You can tell that just by looking at him."

Chris continues, “When you arrive at the other end of the island, you’ll first build a rescue fire that will be judged by me. The first team to paddle home and return their canoes to the beach is the winner of invincibility! Move, campers, move!” We rush to the boat, but Chris stops us, saying in a spooky voice, “Oh, wait! One more thing I should mention. Legend has it, if you take anything off the island, you’ll be cursed forever!”

Coincidentally, thunder crashes, despite us not being in a storm, and Owen exclaims, “Yeah, haha! A cursed island! Whoo!”

Chris exclaims, “Now, get in your canoes and let’s have some fun!”

Owen exclaims, “Yes!”

I ask Heather, “Wanna be my paddling partner?”

Heather shrugs, responding, “Sure, why not? You’re better than any of these lameos, anyways.”

Cody asks Gwen, “Come on, Gwen! You and me, open water! What do you say?”

Gwen walks away from him and toward Trent until Lindsay and Beth grabs Trent’s arms.

Lindsay says, “Trent! You have to come with us!”

Gwen looks at me, asking, “Carmen, please tell me you haven’t chosen anyone yet. You’ve gotta get me out of being Cody’s partner.”

I say, “Sorry, Gwen. Heather and I are already partners.”

Gwen sighs, “Fine, Cody. I’ll be your paddling partner, but I’m in charge.”

Cody smirks, saying, “That’s the way I like it.”

Izzy tries pushing one of the boats, but slips into the boat and rights herself, a vest already on her somehow.

She says to Leshawna, “Just follow my technique. I’m one eighty-seventh Cherokee, you know? Which means, like, the tribe could totally, like, claim me at any time.”

As she pushes the canoe into the water, Leshawna says, “Let’s hope it’s today.”

Bridgette and Courtney partner up, Geoff and DJ partner up, and Owen goes on his own.

Once we’re all partnered up and floating in our boats on the shore, Chris pulls out a BB gun, exclaiming, “On your marks, get set, paddle!”

He fires the gun, hitting a bald eagle out of the sky.

He says to the cameras, “That’s gonna provoke some angry emails.”

We all start paddling toward what I assume to be Boney Island based on the prominent skull shaped cave I can just barely see through thick fog.

I try to make small talk with Heather, fighting a blush, “So… just out of pure curiosity… would you ever date someone on the island?”

Heather looks back at me from where she was paddling in front of me, and smirks, responding, “Oh, I think I can think of someone I might.”

My blush flares brighter, and I can feel my face warming up as she turns back around. I can’t be 100% sure, but I really hope she was talking about me. We row the rest of the way to the island, my heart still racing from her comment. My blush finally goes away when we hear a tree fall in the distance. Leaves rustle, and giant beavers with long tusks start approaching us.

Cody yells, “Monster beavers!”

Chris calmly states from a helicopter above us, “A remnant of the Pleistocene Era, the wooly beaver is a day-active rodent indigenous to Boney Island. Oh yeah, and they’re meat eaters.”

We scream and run away from the beavers toward the cave, where a bear emerges and roars at us.

I yell, “Dead end!”

We duck around the bear and hide in the cave, and after a few minutes, Trent says, “Hey, they’re leaving!”

Owen asks, “Did anybody pack a change of underwear?” We all laugh, thinking it was a joke, until he deadpans, “No, seriously.”

He farts, and we all make remarks of disgust. We run out of the cave as Owen quickly stinks it up, and giant birds screech, diving down at us as we use our boat as a shield over our heads.

I groan, “Oh, come on! Can’t you give us a break one time?!”

Owen remarks, “I am definitely gonna need new underwear.”

We scream and run away from the birds as they chase us, continuously diving at us, the bear joining in.

Gwen exclaims, “Someone do something!”

Cody exclaims, “Oh, wait!” He pulls out a loaf of bread from his pants, adding, “Look!”

Gwen asks, “Where did that come from?”

Cody responds with a dreamy look in his eyes, “I was gonna make us a romantic picnic.”

Gwen exclaims, “With bread from your pants?!”

I exclaim, “Just throw it already before one of us gets snatched!”

The birds screech as Cody tosses the bread, and they dive down to eat it.

Gwen exclaims, “It worked!”

Izzy races to the front, exclaiming, “Come on, the race isn’t over yet! We still have to burn stuff!”

As we reach a fork in the path, Trent exclaims, “I can see the other team!”

Gwen says, “They’re taking the path on the right.”

Trent says, “Then let’s go left!”

We continue running down the left path when the boat suddenly feels a bit heavier.

We stop as Trent say, “Guys, uh, don’t wanna panic here, but I’m shrinking!”

I say, “You’re not shrinking, you’re sinking! That’s quicksand!”

Trent mutters, “Uh oh.”

Lindsay exclaims, “Trent’s stuck! I’m coming, Trent!”

I say, “No, Linds, don’t!”

She start sinking immediately, and gasps, exclaiming, “I’m stuck, too! I so didn’t see that coming.”

Trent exclaims, “Help! Somebody help us!”

Cody swings on a vine Indiana Jones-style and smacks into a tree on the other side of the quicksand. He lets go of the vine as he slides from the tree to the ground, and Trent grabs hold of the vine just as his head sinks into the quicksand. He pulls himself and Lindsay out of the sand, and we all cheer for him, thankful they’re both alive.

Trent says to Cody, “Hey, thanks, bro. You’re a life saver.”

Cody dazedly asks as he gets up, “I am?”

Lindsay hugs him, exclaiming, “My hero! Where did you learn to do that?”

Cody responds, “You know, I watch a lot of movies.”

I fake cough, muttering, “Indiana Jones.”

Gwen says, “This is very touching, guys, but we’ve still got a challenge to win!”

We get to the beach around the same time as the Killer Bass, and we start setting up a firepit, but the Bass’s fire ignites in a matter of seconds.

Heather asks, “How did they do that so quickly?”

I notice a lighter in Duncan’s hand, exclaiming, “They cheated! He’s got a lighter!”

Chris says, “No rule against carrying lighters. Edge, Killer Bass.”

Cody and Trent start talking over some sodas as we keep trying to light our fire.

I can’t really make out what they’re saying, but I hear Cody saying something about Gwen before Heather exclaims, “Ladies, are you finished with your tea party? We’re in the middle of a challenge here!”

The Bass’s fire starts dwindling, so Harold tosses his team’s paddles into the fire to keep it going.

Izzy hold up a clump of tree sap, saying with a maniacal grin, “This ought to do the trick! It’s a handmade fire-starter I made from some tree sap and saved. Stand back, guys. This is gonna be big.”

We warily back away from the fire as she tosses it in, making a huge explosion that reaches higher than the trees.

Chris laughs excitedly, exclaiming, “We have our fire-building winner! Point for the Gophers!”

Heather asks, “Where did you learn to do that?”

I ask, “And where did you find the time to make it? We’ve been here for, like, ten minutes.”

Izzy asks, “Oh, you know, I spent a summer training with the reserves. Yeah, I got into some trouble there and, like, blew up the kitchen by accident, which is why the RCMP is, like, still all over my butt. I am so totally AWOL!”

That story is such baloney. Like anybody’s gonna believe her. We make our way back to our boats, and Cody goes with Beth and Lindsay, and Trent goes with Gwen.

Bridgette asks, “What are we gonna do without paddles?”

Izzy says, “You guys could get someone to swim behind the boats and push them. I did that once for this huge, like, sixty-foot yacht; the whole crew had to flutter-kick for, like, eight days to get to shore, and, like, four of us got eaten by sharks.” She laughs, then adds, “I didn’t. Not me. But it was really insane. Okay, later!”

She screams as Leshawna hits her over the head with her paddle, and our whole team starts making our way back to camp, and I glare at her the whole way. The Killer Bass sadly took Izzy’s advice, and just barely beat us back to camp with DJ pushing all of their boats stacked together with the rest of the Bass inside the top boat. The boats reach the shore and launch their team over the finish line as Izzy and Leshawna were pulling their boat on shore.

Chris exclaims, “The Bass are the winners!”

Leshawna glares at Izzy, exclaiming, “You cost us the game! You are dead!”

Izzy calmly says, “Right. Okay, you are so lucky that my license to kill is currently expired.”

I ask, “DId you just threaten her? What is wrong with you?! You’re going home today, no doubt about it.”

That night at the campfire pit, Chris announces, “And now, the always anxiety-inducing marshmallow ceremony. When I call your name, come and get a marshmallow. Beth. Trent. Gwen. Cody. Owen. Heather. Carmen. Leshawna.” We all walk up and claim our marshmallows, leaving Izzy and Lindsay sitting, and Chris continues, “One last marshmallow. The person who doesn’t get this marshmallow will walk off the Dock of Shame and take a ride on the Boat of Losers. Who’s it gonna be?”

Just as he opens his mouth again to say the name, a helicopter arrives, and an RCMP guard yells, “Izzy! We know you’re down there! You are under arrest!”

Leshawna asks, “You mean all that trash you were talking was true?”

Izzy responds, “No, just the RCMP part.” She then runs into the woods, exclaiming, “See ya! You’ll never take me alive!”

We can hear her maniacal laughter faintly in the distance, and Chris gives Lindsay her marshmallow, saying, “Well, that wraps that up. Night, everyone.”

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quinnzscale · 5 years ago

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Not that anyone asked, but I’ve been seeing makeup discourse going around lately and I kind of wanted to share my experience and relationship with makeup and how it has colored my relationship with my gender identity and presentation.

When I was a kid, I did a lot of theater, so I was introduced to makeup early, but it was expected from everyone. That said, it was very clear that most of the boys were expected to do the bare minimum of stage makeup, and the girls were expected to do a “beauty” look, given that most of the shows being done were quite old and gender-specific. Honestly, I never quite liked it, but I was solidly in my tomboy “all girly things are inherently bad” phase, proudly hating pink and gladly avoiding the romantic leads because I just wasn’t like other girls (oh, yeah, I was that middle schooler). I always wanted to play boy roles because I thought they fit me far better.

I didn’t know what a trans person was until I was about 12, and saw Chaz Bono on tv. I asked some questions and my parents were always willing to answer, which I count myself very lucky for. But it was the first I had heard that anyone could be a different gender than the one assigned at birth, and the first I’d heard of medical transitions.

A few years later, I recall breaking down in tears because I could never play my favorite characters, and I told my dad that I wanted to be a boy. My dad told me that it was a very superficial reason to change your body and I don’t think either of us realized the red flag that was for my future gender experimentation.

When I was 14, I came out as bisexual. I also started wearing makeup a little more, albeit in a very “emo-phase” way, black eyeliner like a raccoon to match my black beanie, side bangs and fingerless gloves. I was introduced to it by a cast mate in a show and I loved how my eyes looked. The more I experimented with makeup, the more I fell into a more feminine role, as that’s the way I thought it should be. If I’m the kind of girl who wakes up early to do makeup, I should also be doing my hair and dressing feminine and cute. But it was always a role.

When I was sixteen, I started dating a boy. I leaned into wearing dresses and lipstick, I leaned into a perfect girlfriend persona, I became what everyone wanted me to be. I thought I was happy. Until I spent time with myself. Until I spoke with my dad. Until I realized I didn’t love my boyfriend.

When I was eighteen, I came out as a lesbian. I became very vocal about it, but oddly, I found myself still in my dresses and flowy tops, long tresses and skirts. I even doubted that other people would know I was gay. I remember having a conversation with a close friend and she told me “no, you’re a classic femme. Don’t worry about it.” So I said “oh, that must be what I am.” And I became that. But I was still playing to other people’s perceptions. I started to become more concerned with “natural makeup,” not being too flashy but still gorgeous. Leaning into classic makeup and dress because this is what I was supposed to be.

When I was twenty, I met this boy in college. We became close friends, and eventually ended up sleeping together a couple times. My attraction to him put me in a state of crisis. I didn’t think I liked guys, but here I was. Did I only say lesbian because I thought it would make the breakup easier?

By this point I had started getting a lot more adventurous and experimental with makeup. I considered it an art form for myself. I wasn’t wearing it for society, or because I thought I needed it. In fact, I went to class quite often bare-faced and thought nothing of it.

I ended up thinking a lot about my gender and sexuality, as I felt less and less comfortable with being called a woman or a girl and more and more leaning towards masculine looks, and quietly stopped calling myself a lesbian, and defaulting to gay. But I always did my makeup the way I wanted to.

Then COVID hit.

Spending this much time with myself made me reevaluate everything. I began to feel as uncomfortable as I was before but now I was able to identify it as dysphoria. I worried that makeup was what made me feel this way, but after a few weeks of bare face, it occurred to me it was not my issue. It was my long hair, my feminine clothes.

I am twenty-one, and I came out as a non-binary person just last month. I have cut my hair and I am in the process of revamping my wardrobe to make me feel more comfortable. I love makeup as much as I did before, but I feel more free about it, despite feeling like I have to remind people that makeup isn’t inherently feminine. I definitely understand that women have been forced into these roles, being expected to wear makeup. As someone who grew up AFAB, I spent a lot of my teenage years being hyper aware of it.

People express themselves in different ways, and makeup is never a must. No one should ever have to wear it if they don’t want to. Makeup is my expression but I’m not wearing it to live up to the expectations of a world who sees me as a woman. It’s part of my existence as an enby, and no one can take that from me. But I make my own post and don’t comment on those women sharing the trauma associated with makeup culture. Because their experiences are valid, the culture surrounding makeup is often shitty, and hopping in to say “well, I wear makeup because I like it and not to adhere to society” undermines the point of these posts.

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currentlybeltingbohemianrhapsody · 6 years ago

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I don’t know why no one has jumped on this yet but PLEASE consider the AU possibilities of a Venom/Into the Spider-Verse crossover where each spider has a slightly different Venom. Here are my versions:

MILES’ UNIVERSE

• I’ve heard people say that Miles could have the 2018 movie Venom but I really like the idea of Miles being a host before Eddie because how awesome would that be?

• Basically he learns about Venom from the other spider people before actually meeting them so when he becomes bonded to the symbiote he just goes straight to Eddie.

• Even though the symbiote isn’t THRILLED to hear that Miles doesn’t want to stay bonded them, they are very pleased to hear that Miles apparently knows their ideal match.

• Eddie is pretty similar to the movie version. His mother is still alive and he doesn’t talk to his dad but he’s still in his twenties and still works for the Daily Bugle.

• Eddie actually has done a few articles on Spider-Man so he isn’t a complete stranger but it’s a little weird to have anyone come up to you and be like “hey you wanna superhero with me? Take this alien and absorb them into your mind and body.”

• Despite the weird circumstances, the symbiote and Eddie actually get on really well when they decide to move to San Fran together they become a kind of West Coast extension of the spider gang.

PETER B.’S UNIVERSE

• Basically comics Venom. But like, EARLY comics Venom. Villain venom.

• Almost comically villainous.

• Full on dumbass blonde thot Eddie who “pumps iron” and challenges everyone to arm wrestle him + a symbiote who has NO problem biting the heads off of criminals like gummy bears.

• Their list of criminals inclues Spider-Man.

• But honestly Venom’s reasons for hating Peter are kind of valid.

• He was pretty shitty to the symbiote and still treats them like they’re an object that Eddie is using just to get back at him for ruining his career

• Eddie could almost forgive him for ruining his career but treating his other the way he does crosses the line.

• So basically Peter FREAKS when he sees Gwen and Miles just chilling with their Eddie’s and they have to tell him that he’s actually a pretty nice guy and maybe it’s kinda sorta Peter’s fault that his Venom part of his rogues gallery.

GWEN’S UNIVERSE

• Gwen and her Eddie are actually really good friends (yeah I know this one doesn’t at all fit with the comics but hear me out).

• (This is probably the longest and most convoluted story idea I’ve ever had)

• They meet through ballet classes and start out as acquaintances. You know, they’re classmates and get along but they’re not bffs.

• Then Gwen’s hanging out with Peter and he’s like “oh yeah meet this guy from my journalism club” and she’s like “Eddie??”

• So it turns out that Eddie and Peter are pretty good friends but no one knows that Eddie is a ballet dancer and he doesn’t want anyone to find out because his dad is an abusive piece of shit and they’re still teenagers so he’s at risk of getting kicked out of the house.

• Gwen and him get to know each other better cause they’re both are close to Peter and the three of them hang out and watch movies and do teenager stuff.

• Somehow his dad finds out about his double life and Eddie ends up homeless. He gets pretty pissed at Gwen and Peter because they’re the only ones who he told and he stops talking to them.

• Then Peter dies and Eddie feels like shit because Peter was a nice guy and didn’t deserve that and he and Gwen kind of form a tense truce because she’s doing the keeping people at arms length thing now.

• So they see each other in class but don’t really talk and he never tells her that he’s still living on the streets and she doesn’t ask.

• After the whole universe hopping adventure and opening her heart up to friendship she reaches out to him again and finds out he doesn’t have a place to stay and HELL if she’s going to let that happen because her family has a guest bedroom.

• So he stays with her for until he can get his own place and the whole time Gwen is superheroing it up in the background and one day she finds this mysterious black goo on an alien ship. I wonder what it is!

• Que the comics Gwenom. They get along but she struggles with the bloodlust and doesn’t know if they’re manipulating her and blah blah blah.

• But in MY VERSION Kingpin somehow figures out that he can use sound to weaken her. The symbiote is separated and Gwen is captured and unconscious, so symby finds Eddie and bonds with him and together they help Gwen escape and in the process the symbiote finds their perfect match and Venom becomes a fellow hero.

• They do try to eat heads as little as possible, but the occasional rapist is oh so tasty and Gwen never has to know.

• I may have come up with this whole ridiculous plot line because I love the idea of ballerino Eddie performing a surreal but beautiful dance with the alien lover who lives inside him.

• (Hint: they’re dancing to Movement by Hozier)

• Sorry that was so long let’s move on now.

SPIDER-MAN NOIR’S UNIVERSE

• An investigative reporter with a dark secret meets a mysterious alien with vague intentions. What will happen happen next? Now showing at a theater near you.

• I mean any Eddie would fit so perfectly into the film noir genre. This one is basically the same as the movie version but wears a fedora and a trench coat instead of an unwashed grey sweatshirt and likes to hide in dark corners and smoke.

• The symbiote is a perfect mix between a classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers style alien and a femme fatale. They find Eddie in a dark church and tell them they need help from a good, strong host in the sexiest way possible but they also are also very goey.

• I think this Venom isn’t really a hero or a villain but, you know, kind of morally grey. Peter and them are both morally grey in their own ways so they have a mutual understanding of “you stay out of my business, I’ll stay out of yours” and occasionally reluctantly team up to punch Nazis.

SPIDER-HAM’S UNIVERSE

• Also has a comically villainous Venom like Peter B., but this one is a PIG.

• Just a stupidly buff pig.

• The symbiote has adorable boar teeth.

• Peter “I mean he’s technically my nemesis but we still meet up for margaritas every Friday” Porker

PENI’S UNIVERSE

• Pretty similar to the comics. Addy is a fellow mech pilot and classmate but I refuse to let them have the same storyline because the mechs seem much more intelligent in the movie than from the small bit I know about the comics and I just can’t see Venom as a mindless, malfunctioning robot.

• The problem instead is that VEN#m has a higher level of sentience than Ben realizes but they have no way to communicate with Addy during battle so they freak out and force a fusion.

• This overwhelms Addy at first and everyone thinks that the suit has gone rogue but when Addy explains that VEN#m just needed a way to talk to her Peni is able to disconnect Addy from the suit while keeping the telepathic link.

• Addy has a very different relationship with her mech than Peni, as VEN#m has a much more human personality than SP//dr, who’s really more like a pet.

• I just want to imagine a high school romance with a girl and a non-binary robot okay?

• It also seems like the symbiote is a little more on the feminine side when they have a female host so still technically non-binary but it’s totally a robot lesbian high school romance if you squint.

That is all thank you for reading. If you want to write more about any of these of have your own ideas then please tell me because lord knows I want to read it.

#lu’s shitposts #venom #into the spider verse #spider man: into the spider verse #symbrock #marvel #eddie brock #miles morales #peter b parker #spider man noir #spider ham #peni parker #addy brock

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allthethingswecoulddo · 5 years ago

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The Guardian needs to pick a side, and so do the women that transphobes are trying to rally.

You can silently allow these purported ‘feminists’ to speak for you, as they vilify trans people, or stand with your trans siblings to do the real work of bringing down the patriarchy and all the gendered violence that comes with it.

Content warning: transphobia, sexual and domestic violence, TERFs, homophobia & biphobia, racism, far right & mention of Nazis

On 2nd March the Guardian published an article called ‘Women must have the right to organise. We will not be silenced’, by self-identifying Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF), Suzanne Moore. The article, however badly written and absurd, has a platform. And with a distinct lack of meaningful trans representation or awareness in the media at large, it’s likely that some people will be lured into believing that Moore has credible points to make. The Guardian has rubber stamped this hateful rhetoric and rallying cry for transphobia, and it’s not the first time.

So it’s time for the Guardian, as well as the cisgender, white middle class women amongst it’s readership, who are clearly being summoned to fight in an imaginary war, to pick a side. And those ‘sides’ are not trans rights vs. cisgender women’s rights. Because trans rights do not infringe cisgender women’s rights. You have to pick two sides of history: you can silently allow these purported ‘feminists’ to speak for you, as they vilify trans people and claim that misogyny and sexism is only experienced by those with the ‘ability to reproduce’ (which, by the way, doesn’t cover all cisgender women) or stand with your trans siblings to do the real work of bringing down the patriarchy and all the gendered violence that comes with it.

What follows is an attempt to unpick the slew of shit arguments that Moore strung together in her Guardian article for the purposes of exposing her thinly veiled hate speech, and equipping allies with the arguments to shut down transphobia in their day to day lives.

1. Moore uses the tactics of the far right, by suggesting that trans people and those fighting for trans rights are a threat to free speech.

Far right poster boys in the UK, like Tommy Robinson AKA Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (LOL), have been rallying supporters by claiming that free speech is under threat. He likes to weaponise this argument against Muslim communities and people of colour for the most part, but won’t say no to a touch of sexism, misogyny and transphobia. It’s become a familiar trope, the idea of a snowflake generation, so sensitive to harm that they won’t even expose themselves to a touch of hate speech.

TERFs are not above allying with the likes of the far right to stoke fear and anger in those who’ve felt the burn of sexism, misogyny, homophobia biphobia and who feel a bit baffled by University discourse around safe spaces and no platforming. They conveniently point the finger at trans people, mostly trans women, and say ‘they are the problem, you can’t say anything anymore, they are silencing us!’

In fact, in the States, TERFs have been proven to have organised links with far right Christian groups, and many of the UK groups who (according to Moore, are definitely not hate groups) are funded by the same organisations. So when Moore says ‘Now, I feel a huge sadness when I look at the fragmentation of the landscape, where endless fighting, cancellations and no platformings have obscured our understanding of who the real enemies are,’ I can’t stifle my maniacal laughter.

How brainwashed do you have to be to think that trans people and their allies are the enemy, when you will cooperate with far right racists? Sure, there might be a debate to be had about the effectiveness of tactics like no platforming, but when trans rights are conflated with the concept of free speech denial, the TERFs are knowingly playing into the hands of the far right.

2. She harks back to Section 28 protests as the good ol’ days, when LGBT people knew what to fight for and our collective oppression trumped our differences. The irony is lost on her.

In 2019 we saw a momentous win in the 30 year battle for LGBT inclusion in schools, with the introduction of inclusive relationships and sex education. That wouldn’t have been possible without solidarity across the LGBT movement.

But TERFs have taken this victory as an opportunity to make the exact same arguments about teaching on gender identity as were made by Section 28. The idea that any mention of LGBT people was ‘the promotion of homosexuality’ (a line taken directly from the clause) is echoed in their claims that children and young people are being brainwashed and tricked into being trans. They even organised to try and prevent funds reaching Mermaids, a charity for trans children and young people last year, by mobilising misinformed and hateful women on Mumsnet via the lightning rod of Graham Linehan - who, by the way, compares people fighting for trans rights to those active in Nazi Germany.

We know that almost half of young trans people have attempted suicide. And scumbags like Moore have the audacity to claim they are being silenced? All whilst being published in the likes of the Guardian.

3. TERFs want you to believe that they are voiceless and marginalized. But the fact is, they get a seat at the table, to make decisions about other people’s lives. How feminist of them.

TERFs want you to believe that they are at the vanguard of feminism, being punished for speaking out like the great feminists before us. But as we’ve established, they are supported by well-resourced dark forces, given public platforms, and unfortunately our government is bending to their will in the name of ‘balance.’

During a consultation on gender recognition in the UK last year, Government Equalities Office officials had meetings with activists from Transgender Trend, Fair Play for Women and A Woman’s Place UK. All these groups are transphobic hate groups; one has wished cancer on trans people on their public social media accounts, and that’s not the worst of it. Now the Guardian has shown its true colors, platforming the voices of established TERFS. Does that seem like silencing to you?

In the meantime, trans people get next to no meaningful representation, we see vitriolic trash in the media every day and transphobic hate crime has rocketed.

4. Concepts of sex and gender as binary are weaponised to invalidate trans people. And it harms cisgender women too.

Moore believes that the most radical insight of feminism is that gender is binary but you are allowed to play with femininity and masculinity. Wow, she has missed the point. You don’t have to be a feminist scholar to know that feminism has helped us understand, unpick and fight back against, a patriarchal system of oppression, of which ideas around femininity and masculinity are symptoms. If the goal of your feminism stops at the destruction of stereotypes, you’re probably pretty privileged - because whilst it’s no doubt, essential to women’s liberation, it will not end gendered violence and oppression.

Gender and sex are both a spectrum - trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people have always existed. This is not, as TERFs would have you believe, a recent fad or phase. The conflation of gender and sex, and the aggressive enforcement of the binary from the very moment of conception is a fundamental pillar of patriarchy. And you are punished, socially and politically if you are considered to deviate from these norms. Moore tokenistically mentions intersex people but fails to acknowledge that right now in the UK, intersex babies are having non-consensual operations at birth so that they will conform more neatly to binary concepts of sex.

It’s in TERF’s interest to protect the binary because they want, more than anything, for cisgender women to believe their rights are threatened by trans people and that trans rights and cis women’s rights are incompatible. TERFs will have you believe that you should be more concerned with someone’s genitals than their humanity. They seem less concerned by internal sex organs, hormones and all the other facets that make up the narrow binaries of sex; but that would complicate their nice, neat excuse for transmisogyny.

5. TERF’s priority is not the prevention of rape or domestic abuse. It is the vilification of trans people, who are disproportionately affected by sexual and domestic violence.

TERFs seem to get endless inspiration from the oppressors of LGBT people; Moore’s article is littered with a transphobic trope, that paints trans people as predatory. It’s nothing new, that’s exactly what they said about lesbians, gay and bi people during the Section 28 era that Moore seems so nostalgic for. And if there’s one stand out reason you should visibly and proudly reject the rhetoric of TERFs and stand side by side with your trans siblings, it’s this: TERFs promote violence against trans people when they paint trans people as predatory. They are a hate group, they promote violence against trans people.

Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement (pictured above) said ‘I founded the 'me too' movement in 2006 because I wanted to find a way to connect with the black and brown girls in the program I ran.’ Burke is still fighting to center the voices of marginalised survivors as the movement has blown up and focused on cis, white celebrities. In a 2017 article she said, ‘there’s no conversation in this whole thing [#MeToo] about transgender folks and sexual violence. There’s no conversation in this about people with disabilities and sexual violence. We need to talk about Native Americans, who have the highest rate of sexual violence in this country. So no, I can’t take my focus on marginalized people.’

It shouldn’t need spelling out, but we know that:

Two in five trans people (41 per cent) and three in ten non-binary people (31 per cent) have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months. (Stonewall, LGBT in Britain -Trans Report)

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 47% of transgender people are sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime.

More than a quarter of trans people (28 per cent) in a relationship in the last year have faced domestic abuse from a partner. (Stonewall, LGBT in Britain -Trans Report)

Seven per cent of trans people said they have been refused care because they are LGBT, while trying to access healthcare services in the last year. (Stonewall, LGBT in Britain -Trans Report)

Cisgender women must be visible and active trans allies and stand side by side with their trans siblings if we’re going to win. So that instead of wasting our energy having to defend ourselves and fight for the very fact of trans people’s existence, we can get on with protecting and winning rights.

So, cisgender women of Guardian readership and beyond, pick a side. These vile transphobes will exploit their exposure to feed hatred and violence against trans women the whole trans community. Your voice is important, and necessary, to reject their rhetoric, and build a feminist movement of meaningful solidarity. We have so much more to fight for.

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transastronautistic · 6 years ago

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queer history: a chat with Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg

you know what i’d love to witness? a conversation between Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg. can you even imagine it??

Lister wrote, “I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say I am like no one in the whole world.” but i think she’d quickly realize that Feinberg is “made like” her -- that Feinberg has a very similar sexuality and gender expression to her own, and truly gets what it’s like to be persecuted for those things. Lister’d be so thrilled and relieved to find she’s not alone!

and Feinberg? when ze was younger, ze was desperate to find hirself in history -- just like Lister, ze was convinced that “No one like me seemed to have ever existed” (Transgender Warriors, p. 11). Feinberg would absolutely recognize Lister as a part of the big beautiful queer history that ze eventually discovered.

there are many parts of Feinberg’s story that come to mind as i watch Gentleman Jack -- such as when Lister is talking to the little boy Henry, who asks if she’s a man, and she replies:

“Well, that's a question. And you are not the first person to ask it. I was in Paris once, dressed extremely well, I thought, in silk and ribbons, ringlets in my hair. Very gay, very ladylike. And even then, someone mistook me for a...Mm. So, no, I am not a man. I'm a lady. A woman. I'm a lady woman. I'm a woman.”

when i watched that scene, i immediately thought of this passage from Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors:

“...I was considered far too masculine a woman to get a job in a store, or a restaurant, or an office. I couldn’t survive without working. So one day I put on a femme friend’s wig and earrings and tried to apply for a job as a salesperson at a downtown retail store. On the bus ride to the interview, people stood rather than sit next to me. They whispered and pointed and stared. ‘Is that a man?’ one woman asked her friend, loud enough for us all to hear. The experience taught me an important lesson. The more I tried to wear clothing or styles considered appropriate for women, the more people believed I was a man trying to pass as a woman. I began to understand that I couldn’t conceal my gender expression” (p. 12).

over a century separated these two, but people who could or would not conform to their assigned gender suffered in both eras. both of these people longed for a connection to a wider community of people like them, longed to know why people like them were persecuted and hated and told that God reviled them. but while Lister did manage to cultivate a tiny haven for herself of loved ones who accepted her, she never found the wider community that Feinberg found -- the world of “drag queens, butches, and femmes,” a world in which “I fit; I was no longer alone” -- a world that extended beyond gay bars, deep into past millennia as well as across the entire globe!

Feinberg worked hard to dig up the answers to all hir questions of why -- “Why was I subject to legal harassment and arrest at all? Why was I being punished for the way I walked or dressed, or who I loved? Who wrote the laws used to harass us, and why? Who gave the green light to the cops to enforce them? Who decided what was normal in the first place?” (p. 8). what ze concluded was that the rise of class so many ages ago is what sowed the seeds of transphobia.

in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg argues that in ancient societies that followed a matrilineal system and shared all resources communally, whenever agriculture enabled some men to begin accumulating and hoarding resources, an intolerance for gender diversity would also arise (see pp. 42-44, 50-52). once these men had capital, they had power. the Few could use their capital to bribe, to threaten, and to control the Many. eventually these men would twist their communities into a patriarchy in order to ensure that they could keep the power in their own hands. for patriarchs rely upon a rigid gender binary to keep their power, wherein those assigned male are placed above everyone else. after all, if men behave "like women," how can we place them above women? if women behave "like men," will they try to force their way into the dominant group? if some people are too ambiguous to be categorized into either group, what does that say about our argument that this binary is the natural way of doing things or divinely ordained?

i think that there are some aspects of this history that Lister would be excited to learn. she’d recognize herself as one of those women trying to force their way into the dominant group, and agree that the patriarchs of her day were not happy about it. she’d appreciate Feinberg’s scholarship around those religious texts that she as a Christian and Feinberg as a Jewish person shared, how Feinberg shows that it was not God but men who decided that the gender binary must be enforced. Lister would heartily agree that her nature is God-given, not God-hated.

but the conversation between Lister and Feinberg would very quickly break down, for the same reason that transphobia sprung up: because of class.

not long into their discussion, Feinberg would be like “and that’s why Capitalism is the root of all evil and people like us will thrive only once we’ve overthrown the landed gentry and disseminated all the wealth” and Lister would be like. “excuse me. i am the Landed Gentry. the lower classes will get their callused hands on my wealth over my dead body"

and the relationship would promptly dissolve from there -- and i’d take Feinberg’s side 1000% and hope ze could knock some humility into Lister’s classist ass!

but anyway to me the similarities between these two historical figures combined with the stark differences in their worldviews only goes to show what an enormous factor class is! Feinberg notes this fact, that “trans expression” has existed among all classes -- and that social privilege makes a big difference in a trans or gnc person’s life:

“For the ruling elite, transgender expression could still be out in the open with far less threat of punishment than a peasant could expect. For example, when Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated in 1654, she donned men’s clothes and renamed herself ‘Count Dohna.’ Henry III of France was reported to have dressed as an Amazon and encouraged his courtiers to do likewise” (80).

(to be fair to Henry III, his gender non-conforming ways were used against him to justify his overthrow. but for a time, he had the means to express himself and to gather others who were like him into his court.)

if Feinberg had been born in the uppermost class of hir society, would that have protected hir from much of the cruelty and violence they experienced? after all, ze would never have had to scramble for a job, to try desperately to conform to gender expectations just to survive. Lister was able to spend much of her life refusing to listen to the hateful words circulating behind her back because to her face people tended to be much more polite. would Feinberg have had that experience too, had ze not been of the lower working class? would ze have never gone through the pain and struggle that caused hir to dig so ferociously into the history of transphobia and queerphobia?

it’s much less likely for someone at the top of the food chain to question the food chain -- even if they notice how the Way Things Are does work against them in some ways. Lister was unlikely to notice how a social hierarchy that pits the wealthy above the poor is intrinsically linked to the structures that pit men over women and confine each person into a rigid binary box -- because to notice that truth would have been to her own detriment. she may not have wanted to keep the cissexism, but she did want to keep her wealth.

As Feinberg puts it in Transgender Warriors when discussing afab people who fought for the Confederacy in the US Civil War, “just being [trans] doesn’t automatically make each person progressive.”

Lister was not prepared to fight a battle against her own privileges, even if it would also have been a battle against her own oppression. that doesn’t mean that those of us looking back at her story today can’t treasure what we have in common with her! we can. after all, in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg recounts the stories of the more “problematic,” complicated figures in queer history right alongside the ones that better fit hir own views. ze finds value in their stories despite the flaws, and we can too.

but at the same time, we have to acknowledge where Lister fell short, and do the hard work of examining our own privileges and considering how we can be better than Lister. we can instead be like Feinberg, whose marginalization -- as a butch lesbian, as a Jewish person, as a transgender person, and as a lower class person -- inspired hir not to cling to the privileges ze did have as hir only foothold in the power structure, but rather to be the best ally ze could be to people of color, to trans women, and others:

“We as trans people can’t liberate ourselves alone. No oppressed peoples can. So how and why will others come to our defense? And whom shall we, as trans people, fight to defend? A few years before he died [Frederick] Douglass told the International Council of Women, ‘When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of women, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.’ I believe this is the only nobility to which we should aspire -- that is, to be the best fighters against each other’s oppression, and in doing so, to build links of solidarity and trust that will forge an invincible movement against all forms of injustice and inequality” (p. 92).

so, yeah. i’d love to hear these two people chat. i relate deeply to both of their experiences and think they’d find a lot of commonalities between themselves. ...and then with Feinberg i’d love to give Lister a piece of my mind when it comes to her classism.

#trans history #sapphic history #leslie feinberg #< my icon and my hero #anne lister #< a garbage gay who's a genius about so many things yet falls for the classist bullshit of the very people who made her life difficult #averygaypost #uhhhh....anyone have any Thoughts?

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telling-our-stories · 6 years ago

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Coming out stories

A heads-up. These are the original stories, however, they are anonymous. This wasn't intentional, I just screwed up and didn't tag. These stories, aren't mine, so if I've posted yours and you want it taken down. Please, just ask me.

Alright.

I am tired of people who are against the LGBTQ+ community. Its alright to have an opinion. It is not alright to put people down for being themselves. The first pride was a riot, a fight for what they believe in. I'm trying to do the same. I'm trying to gather the stories of the fallen, the ones who are still standing, the people who are willing to fight for everything they are. And I am fully willing to take a stand and fight to prove we exist. To prove that we're here, and we aren't backing down.

Hello, my name is Dustyn. I'm here today to collect stories from the LGBTQ+ community. There's a lot of people who are against us, which is exactly why we need to stand our ground. I'm not asking for a fight, I'm asking for your stories. My story is not yet finished, though I'm a bisexual trans male. Our stories are important, because they show who we are and how far we've come. I've struggled a lot in my life, but I've made it. So have others. Here are some of those stories. We'll start with mine. I've gone through many identities, mostly trying to figure myself out. I'm still doing that. My family doesn't accept me for me, but I have many friends who do. There are so many accepting people in life, and I appreciate all of you who are proud to be who you are. Whether closeted or not, you are all valid and amazing.

"Hello my name is Melissa and i am bisexual. My family didn't really have a harsh reaction to it other than the fact that they didn't understand it at first. That was most of my trouble was people saying that bisexual wasnt valid. Im sorry mine is so short but i think the moral is that you are valid. No matter what you identify as on any spectrum in the LGBTQ+ community. Also even if your outside of the LGBTQ+ community and your just an ally. We love you and you are all valid.”

"Salutations everyone. My name is Talan. I am non binary, panromantic and i am currently between asexual and demisexual. I was raised in a very christian household where my mother and father had very strict beliefs. They believed that being anything but straight and to me being anything other than my assigned gender was a sin, and many people still say that to me. When I came out to my dad he flipped, he took me out of school for a year and put me in online school. During this time in my life I had reached a dark time where i thought that it was never going to get better but trust me it does. I am still living with my dad who does not accept me and at this point we don't talk that much, but it does get better. We have gotten to the point where we can have a civil conversation with each other and im back in school. I have an amazing girlfriend and multiple qpps who i love very much. Everybody at school is very loving and supporting. Remember that family is not chosen for you, you make your own family. If you ever feel down than just know that there are so many amazing and kind people in the world who love you for who you are, no matter what that may be. You are loved."

“I'm glad you reached out to me, anything to help people understand more about the LGBTQ+ community. I am 19 now and I came out to my family at the age of 14. My parents were the typical ones who said it was just a phase and it would not last but here I am five years later and I made it through. There was a point where I had no one to turn to but then i met my amazing boyfriend. He helped me through the good and the bad and showed me that there were things to stay for. I am now in college and pursuing a career in photography at the University of Arizona. I hope that could help a bit!”

"Okay. Well. My coming out experience was definitely not expected in the slightest. I was in the 5th grade. Realizing that I liked both boys and girls was quite the revelation. I had a lesbian friend who was the first ever gay person I met or knew. I remember being backstage of a show I was in and just crying through the words, "I know I'm supposed to love guys, but I love girls too". After that. I didn't tell anyone else, until 6th grade. I was a track meet and a group of people I sat with was talking to my lesbian friend about kissing. I forget the exact conversation, but I spoke up and said I would kiss her. A Christian girl in my class was nearby and heard. She was disgusted. Therfore by the end of the week, I was completely outed to my entire school. It was ugly, but it got better over time I guess. I'm a junior in high school now. I have yet to come out to my parents, but at least I know that I am finally comfortable in my my sexual orientation and gender identify (demigirl, which I didn't figure out until a few short months ago)."

"Hey, I haven't actually come out to everyone yet but I have told a few people and all of their reactions were positive "oh you're bi? cool" and that was it. No "so do you like me?" or anything which was super great. So I was "straight" and when I heard about the LGBT community I was "straight" for about another five days. I did some thinking and realised I'd actually liked girls before, and shortly after came out as bi to a few of my close friends at the time. They were all supportive, bar one who said "you're just looking for attention lmao".Coincidentally, she had also come out as pan and had received the usual "you're attracted to pans?". I go to a Christian school, so it would be pretty disastrous if the news leaked out, but naturally it did. Not everyone knows, maybe about 10% of my grade. I suspect some teachers found out about how some people were LGBT (not many though, there's about 5 of us), because our dean of year gave the "you're too young to know that" talk. Mostly at school we get sheltered from all LGBT news and details at all, and my parents hadn't told me much about it either, even though they are supportive and would be okay if I came out as bi."

"I'm bisexual. I first came out to my elementary friends over the phone 3 years after we went to different middle schools. They were mostly all so accepting and I was so overwhelmed I hung up on them. I spent a few minutes laying on the ground clutching that phone to my chest, I'd never felt so loved. I cried and cried and cried because these people atleast the ones who accepted me see me different now but are okay with it. Two years later, now, I still haven't come out to my parents. I still need a few years but I'm a little bit more open at school now most of my friends accept me. Others were cut off, I can't do that with my family so they still don't know. Not as if they would take me seriously either way. I want to get past college get a place a stable life then maybe I'll be ready, just maybe. Thank you for listening to my story."

"I was surrounded by my Uncle and his husband for years. I always knew that gay people existed. When I was younger I never thought anything different of myself; I thought I was one of the boys.

It never really clicked that I was the only one who saw it that way.

When I was 7, my mother and sister suggested I take dance I shot them down saying "that's for girls."

They didn't get it.

I wasn't entirely sure what came over me in that moment either but I know it felt right.

As myself and the people I knew grew up I realised I wasn't happy with the way I looked. I tossed it up as your typical dislike.

~every girl went through that at my age didn't they~

All the girls I knew were so happy that they were becoming women and I just sat in the back wondering why I didn't feel the same way.

I still didn't get it.

Once my depressed state got worse I decided to read into ways to love yourself and your body.

I started taking selfies, dressing up, wearing heels and makeup, forcing myself to sing even though I hated the way I looked and sounded.

It got worse.

I broke down when nobody was looking and acted like it was fine; like I wasn't praying that whatever I was feeling would go away for even a second.

And one day I looked in the mirror and I thought "this isnt right. This isn't me. This isn't what I want. Who in the hell is that person staring back at me?"

And I accepted it. That I would never be who I should be. That I would never be happy. Because nobody would love me. Nobody would want me. And nobody would accept me. Because if I was happy then that meant my family wouldn't have had the little girl theh thought they had gotten.

And up until recently no one knew that I broke down every night, that my thoughts got so bad I wanted to drown in my own tears so that maybe it would all be over. Because to me coming out to them was worse than death.

And here I am years later. My family knows but they don't care. They don't try to comprehend that this repression it kills me all the time. So I gathered my money got myself exactly what they told me they would never let me have and I lie. I go behind their backs and I live like the man I really am online. I bind my chest and I hide from their sight and when they ask I say it's just their eyes.

Because if they knew - if my mother knew - they would rather me suffer day after day than be who I am."

"heyo, i read your post and id like to put something to it.

i am a part of the community, havent came out to my parents yet, because i know for a fact id be sent to a psichologist or thrown out. but i am me online

an old friend of mine is a trans guy and found me a few weeks ago. he said he saw that i support LGBT+ and it was so comforting for him. a friend who i haven't talked with for 9 years!after he told me that he lost half of his family for being himself, his dad ignores him since, but he has a boyfriend and got his life together

and that i could be a little comfort for him is really nice. even the people who are closeted can be helpful in the community."

"Well, my mom took it well. I had gotten stuck in my closet and then she got me unstuck and I told her I was queer.

My brother, we were sitting in the car and he told me he always knew, but I had to keep it a secret from my dad or else bad things would happen.

My friends hugged me and started to use my name and pronounsSo coming out to my dad and stepmom, it wasn't even a coming out but a forced outage.

They took my phone away the night of a Panic attack that I still have nightmares over and searched it. They read all my messages.... everything.

I wanted to scream for it to stop, but I knew it wouldn't. They told me that they loved me, but I had to stop being me and I have to go back to being a girl who was cishet

But once you have a taste of freedom of who you really are, you can never go back ...I couldn't hide again. I just had to wait till I could spread my wings and be free somewhere else."

"Ok so for the thing you tagged me in, I don’t exactly have a coming out story yet, and I’m not sure of my identity entirely. I’ve tried out tons of labels and am sticking with queer at the moment just cuz it takes the stress off of picking an extremely definite word to describe me. I came out as queer last year, but I don’t consider it a coming out story because 1) I only told my friends and not my family, and 2) queer doesn’t completely define me. In real life, I’m doing my best to go back in the closet, but I think my “friends” may have told other people who spread rumors around my school, so it’s been difficult. A bunch of people make random references to me liking boys (I’m amab) and it made me uncomfortable enough that I started telling them I’m straight. I’m planning on staying as far in the closet as possible until people get more accepting and I understand myself fully."

"It's not a coming out story (mostly) but it's a realization of sorts.

Yesterday our Social Studies teached asked us to form groups and discuss a contemporary issue that we would present at the front in a few minutes. Long story short I suggested LGBT+ community and rights, which my group mates accepted. I live in a really conservative country (with at least 81% of the entire population identifying as Christians) and that's an extremely taboo topic. It ended up leading the teacher asking us to raise our hands if we believed the lgbt community should be allowed Civil Union, not considering religion an all. I was so afraid to raise my hand, but it was what I believed in and I couldn't live with it if I didn't show it, so I raised my hand. I didn't really do this as a member of the community, I wasn't thinking of myself. I was thinking of a world where this is accepted in my country, where I can go outside and be open and love whoever I wanted to, and I guess the idea of standing up for what I believed in was what pushed me to do that. A big majority of the class was against, and I was just so afraid even though some small logical part of me knew they would not do anything.Today, our Civics teacher had us grouped again to make a live news report and once again, my group (international news) got assigned lgbt+ community because of our listed problems yesterday. I suggested interviewing a member of the community and basically came out to two people I knew were trustworthy (nearly all three other members in that group but thank God I think the third one did not hear) and we agreed that I could be used if I only had my voice recorded and edited to not sound like me. Just a few hours ago I found out that one of my classmates, who I thought was a nice sweet boy, turned out to be a big homophobe. "Sodom and Gomora and Liberals are teaching unnatural things" kind of guy.I guess that broke something in me, because another thing I was really passionate about for when I grew up was this certain job, though no one supported me. I used to want to do that so much the idea of anything else repelled me, sometimes the idea of the other more "acceptable" jobs brought me to tears. Somehow this one admission that I thought everyone should have the right to at least a civil union and finding out my classmates didn't believe in that crushed something in me hard enough that I lost the passion to do that job I wanted. It makes no sense how this connected with that apart from the fact that neither are things I have been or would be supported on, but I guess seeing that this world isn't really safe made me lose hope.I felt scared to raise my hand, almost like I was actually coming out (which I now realize I'm absolutely never doing to many of those people) and the realization that some place I thought was a safe space for me, because all of those people in that class, I thought I could trust them. I've been with them since before I could spell "friend" correctly, they're family to me, I believed I would be safe and accepted, and then came to find out that wasn't quite the case...But well, basically I was terrified then crushed to find out that I could have outted myself to a group of people who would not take my news lightly

Found out some people I thought were friends thought people like me were broken

Found out some people I used to have the biggest crushes on didn't even believe in letting people have a civil union."

"I’m very excited to see brave people like you ready to start a revolution, so I thought I’d share my, sorta, coming out experience.

So I have divorced parents meaning I’d have to come out to four parents. This happened mainly last year. I was pretty sure I was bi, (tho I now identify panromantic demigirl) I knew my dad and stepmom would be great with it, and they were. But when it came to my mother, well, she wasn’t really homophobic, but she had different ideas about how a gay person should behave. She outed me to her after overhearing a convo with my friends. She then told me I was too young, and gave the “its a phase” talk. She knew I was fairly open about it because I lived by a motto to “be so myself that other people feel brave enough to be themselves too” But she believed a gay person should keep it a secret. Nowadays I don’t believe in the process of “coming out” I am open about my sexuality and gender but I don’t do formal coming outs. I always believed that if straights don’t have to, neither should I just because I “don’t fit a default” My mother wants me to come out to my stepfather even tho he already knows. I thought sharing a coming out story that also showed you should never feel obligated to come out. My mother guilt trips me about it, but I remain rooted in my beliefs that I shouldn’t have to come out, which I think is valid.

Hope my story can help anyone and just wanna say you are so so valid, amazing and powerful and should never feel pressured to be open if you don’t want to. Long live the revolution!!!🏳️‍🌈."

"Hello! I read your post about collecting LGTBQA+ stories and I thought Id share my brief experiences as a bi girl from Germany ^^

Tbh I never made a big deal about coming out, as I personally feel it goes to show that we're revealing a wierd secret, and Id like my sexualtiy to be something normal, not a main identifying characteristic. And everyone of my friends or classmates that I mention it to appear to have no problem with that whatsoever, and as far as I know Im not percieved as predatory either.

My family, however, is a whole different matter. While Im sure that my mums side of the family would be perfectly fine and my parents know already, when youve heard your fathers parents talk about eastern europeans and other immigrants using only slurwords and your uncles parents have expressed their absolute disgust about seeing a gay couple enjoy a nice picnic at the park, you get very cautious about who you tell. Especially since I dont want to put the supportive family in the position of having to consider whom they can talk to about this.

Another thing that Ive noticed after my exchange year in Sweden and seeing my first pride, though not having the time to attend, on my way there in Copenhagen, is how little support my country gives to this community from a social perspective. At my swedish school, all the teachers had a rainbow keyband from a *seminar about LGBTQA+ people*, something Im sure Germany would never do, and all of them kept it. There was no question whether you support us or not, it was an acceped part of social life and no big deal; we even did a private introduction round for pronouns!

And then I came back here. During pride month, there were no rainbow decorations, the most I saw of a parade was two discarded paper flags on the ground afterwards. When I vented about this to my ally friend, she only said that "some people and companies just like to stay neutral". Try all of them in Germany, but sure.

I know our community has come far, but I can also see that it isnt fsr enough, and that is the fight I am still fighting.

Hope this helps ^^."

"Alright. Mine isnt that interesting but I'll do my best :)

I came out as bisexual when i was in the sixth grade. It wasnt a huge deal to my mom. She said okay and we went on with our lives. Around the end of that year, i told her i thought i was trans and she said i wasnt. I came out to her again six months later and she said the same thing. There was a lot of yelling. Mind you, she isnt transphobic at all. The third time... she was so done with me. She yelled and so did i. It took four different times for her to accept me, and even then, i had to do the last time over text because i was scared of her reaction."

"So, my name is Ell. I identify as queer and demigender. I don't know what to say here really early than it's important to find others like you when you're not as close to your family as you used to be. Because of your identity. My family is more accepting than most, but still. The community online is so so important to me, and this project makes me really happy. So thank you. "

"I was at sea world and my mom was in the car I was talking about how my dad was super homophobic. My mom says that my dad acts like it’s a disease I said will if it is then I have got it, My mom is understanding and says that she will love me no matter what."

"So, I’m non-binary and bisexual. That’s a big no-no in a latino family like mine, it’s always grow up, get married with the opposite sex, and have kids. I don’t know why I felt that I could just say anything to my mom one day and she immediately objected. “Are you sure you’re not a lesbian or just confused? You can’t like more than one gender. Also, what’s this about a non gender? You’re either a boy or a girl, that’s it.”

Thankfully after a lecture and me apologizing (though I did nothing but tell her more about me) she let the subject go. I’ve never told my dad because I know mom just will get in the way and say I’m lying again, but at least my friends are understanding and almost completely LGBTQ+."

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gay-twink96024-blog · 6 years ago

Text

heads up. psa. whatever you wanna call it.

so as a transman, who happens to be gay and a transmed/transcum or however you care to say it, i have a LOT of opinions! and this is my blog and on this blog i will state any and all opinions i have! because i’m allowed to!!

if any of my opinions make you uncomfortable or if i seem uneducated or you think i might be misunderstanding something, please! interact! private message me! be like “hey in your [insert post descriptors] i saw [this opinion] and [your thoughts]” or be like “hey so i think you don’t understand [subject] and i’d like to discuss it with you”! say something in my notes! reboot with YOUR opinion! you can literally do whatever you want just please be respectful!

9/10 i will try to respond but please remember that i am a 17 year old boy and i am still in highschool and i’m taking ap classes and have a job! so my time isn’t dedicated solely to tumblr and with that, my time isn’t solely dedicated to responding to your messages or however you choose to interact. and this isn’t to seem rude i just want y’all to know that i probably WON’T respond immediately! in fact a much faster way to reach me is my instagram ( @ goosesoul there is a different name on that account! don’t worry about it (: )as i am much more frequent on there than i am on tumblr.

anyway here are some opinions of mine: this is as they are on december 30th, 2018, at 1:11AM CT. please remember that opinions can change and grow!

you need dysphoria to be trans: in this i mean pre-transition. a transman who has fully transistioned is not going to have nearly as much (if any) dysphoria compared to a teenager who hasn’t gotten to transition yet.

pedophiles are gross! to the pedophiles who know that and have not acted on their urges and are getting help, good job! but pedophiles are still gross and nasty.

incest is also gross and nasty.

stop fetishizing gay men, transmen, lesbians, transwomen, etc. we’re not “precious soft bois” or “big buff queens” or “your little sins”. stop.

gay men dating transmen does not make them less gay

lesbians dating transwomen does not make them less lesbian

transmen are men

transwomen are women

nazis suck!

terfs also suck!

tucutes are okay as long as they’re being respectful.

the same goes for transmeds.

calling someone a “transtrender” is not okay. you do not know them and you are not the person to judge whether they are trans or not.

just because you have found a transperson has a differering opinion than you does NOT give you the right to misgender them. i don’t care if this transman is a nazi. he is a nazi. and as much as that sucks that he is, those are his pronouns and you should respect them. pronouns are not a privilege.

non-binary is a valid gender

most micro labels are unneeded :/

most people are demisexual, an emotional bond is usually present before a LOT of the population takes it that far

LGBT is enough of an acronym ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

queer is a slur and while some people are comfortable with it not everyone is and it’s not okay to force it onto others

being an ace/aro inclusionist or exclusionist is okay! being an asshole to ace/aro people due to it is NOT.

not everyone is valid

it’s okay to have differing OPINIONS and still be friends with someone!

political opinions are not always included in the previous statement

you don’t have to like our president, or any of the way the government is running and still be a good citizen.

i will most likely be adding to this list in the morning and i’ll mark anything past the 30th with a date and i’ll make edits as need be.

thank you if you read all that! anyway yeah i’m just trying to make my blog more cohesive, even with the many sh*tposts i have among the other posts in here lol

-elliott

#trans #transman #transboy #transmed #transcum #discourse #opinions #ok to interact #ok to message #gay #lesbian #transwomen #transgirl #nonbinary #tucute

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a-polite-melody · 7 years ago

Note

Why do you use “straight is an oppressor class so het aces can’t be straight” as an argument when het aces DO oppress and hold privilege over non het people

Because Straight as an oppressor class is an oppressor class on many axes.

Let’s flesh all of this out, shall we? Because I’m bored, don’t want to sleep even though I need to, and in a mental place where I don’t really care if sharing my honest opinion on how intersectionality functions within LGBTQ+ and queer communities blows up in my face.

Before I start, I should mention that I only identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community at the very fringes. I continue to hold onto a scrap of hope in that community because I’ve had some good experiences with offline spaces, even though online I’ve felt nothing but alienated by the community built around that acronym. I predominantly, community-wise, identify as queer and do so loudly because queer politics are empowering and have supported me through all that the LGBTQ+ community has not due to assimilationist bullshit. I mention all of this because I know there are different ideals between the LGBTQ+ and queer communities about these things, and I agree with the queer view, and I would like to see the LGBTQ+ community function at least somewhat more like it because it would benefit so many of us. But, I do understand that the LGBTQ+ community, in general, doesn’t like how I’m going to put all of this stuff.

The fundamental misunderstanding of my argument is that Straight is an all-encompassing oppressor class over all axes that are affected under both Cissexism and Heterosexism. I admit, I don’t often specify that. But when I say Straight, especially when I go out of my way to capitalize it, I mean it in that all encompassing way, not as an oppressor class on a single axis.

Now, what do I mean, exactly, when I say all axes under Cissexism and Heterosexism? There’s a lot. And I think that there are people who look at some of these axes as lesser forms of individual-axis-cissexism and individual-axis-heterosexism (if they even acknowledge them at all).

[As a side note: you’ll notice that there’s a lot of room for similar types of misunderstandings to occur, because the language we’ve been using to talk about these things has evolved in such a way that we’ve started using some of these as blanket terms for multiple axes, as well as names for their own individual axes. This is much in the same vein as how gay and trans have been used as a blanket terms and also as an individual identities. And so, in trying to be as clear as possible with the words I’m using, any time I capitalize a system of oppression or an oppressor class (for example, Heterosexism, Straight, etc.) I mean it as the blanket-usage, while if I do not I’m using it to describe things on the level of an individual axis of oppression. When there could be a doubt I’ll be sure to specify (and if you find any places you’re confused about, let me know).]

I’m pretty sure I did a breakdown of what the axes that are encompassed under Cissexism and Heterosexism are in a post before, but rather than trying to dig around for that I’ll just list them again, along with definitions of each of these terms.

Cissexism: The belief that there are only two sexes (male and female) and that as a result there are only two genders (man and woman) which, in everyone, will match exactly with the sex assigned to an individual at birth.

perisexism: The belief that there are only two sexes.

exorsexism: The belief that there are only two genders.

cissexism: The belief that everyone’s genders match exactly to the sex they were assigned at birth.

Heterosexism: The belief that everyone experiences a present, consistent, and persistent attraction that is both romantic and sexual in nature, but to exactly one gender, which is the other binary gender in relation to their own.

allosexism: The belief that everyone experiences a present, consistent, and persistent attraction that is both romantic and sexual in nature.

monosexism: The belief that everyone is attracted to exactly one gender.

heterosexism: The belief that everyone’s attraction is toward the other binary gender in relation to their own.

Without having privilege in all six of these axes covered under the blanket terms of Cissexism and Heterosexism, someone cannot have full access to Straight privilege. They may have conditional access, which involves erasure and invisibility. They may have advantages, which involves distancing themselves from the rest of the community. But they don’t have Straight privilege.

So, yes. Under the heterosexism axis, cisgender heteroromantic asexual people do hold privilege. However, they do not hold full privilege in the system of Heterosexism. But those who experience attraction, and in such a way that isn’t split, even if they are oppressed under heterosexism, hold privilege over that same cisgender heteroromantic asexual person under the allosexism axis. Of course, that isn’t to say that they hold full privilege in the system of Heterosexism. Neither of these two hypothetical individuals do.

Essentially, exclusionists view Heterosexism as only containing heterosexism. They discount, write off, down-play, or outright deny the existence of the other two axes that fall under Heterosexism. And if you only are dealing in heterosexism and don’t take those other two systems of oppression, I suppose it would make absolutely no sense for asexuality to be part of the LGBTQ+ and queer communities. But our communities don’t (or, at least shouldn’t in the case of the LGBTQ+ community) deal in only heterosexism with regards to oppression based on attraction.

The queer community doesn’t, because in rejecting assimilationism it’s pretty much a necessity that we acknowledge all three axes under Heterosexism.

The LGBTQ+ community, on the other hand is... inconsistent at best about acknowledging the other axes under Heterosexism. At worst we have those who claim that monosexism and allosexism don’t exist. This is where claims of, “bisexual people have to be attracted to the same gender,” come from. To reject monosexism but try to appease the ‘good bisexuals’ (the ones who are GAY oh and also maybe have attraction to other genders too I guess) by saying, “oh, no but bisexual people are oppressed in exactly the same way as gay and lesbian people!” which... no. Monosexism is it’s own unique thing and works differently to heterosexism. And there’s similar sentiment about asexuality, where, “oh, well, but LGB aces are oppressed only and exactly the say way as gays and lesbians (and the ‘good bisexuals’) who are allosexual [and trans aces are oppressed only the same way trans allosexual people are (which I’ve bracketed because while this is often part of the statement as well, I’m focusing on orientation as Heterosexism is the main focus)].”

All of that to say that, yes, a heteroromantic asexual person could also be called a straight asexual person, so long as they’re fine being referred to that way. But straight is a different oppressor class than Straight, and only Straightness (should) disqualify one from our communities.

#ace discourse #bi discourse #queer discourse #I'm going to tag some others for blacklisting because I touch on other stuff #like...#trans discourse #nonbinary discourse #intersex discourse #anon #asked

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