#which i get bc personally my gender factors so little into the identity question for me. i have other things going on.

[pillars-of-salt]

how do i explain that one's sense of self and personal identity is bigger than just gender identity.

[frecklystars]

I never really thought about sexuality much even when the people around me started showing interest in relationships. So at first I thought I was bisexual, because I had the same amount of interest in men/women. Then I realized that gender wasn't really an important factor to me in attraction, so I called myself pansexual. Then I realized most of the people I'd ever felt attraction towards were fictional, so these days I mostly just use aspec/queer to identify myself.

All of these labels (to me) are just a tool for helping you understand yourself a little better, and you don't need to force yourself to use one you don't feel fits anymore.

I remember seeing a post on tumblr ages ago talking about identity that was like 'show me a permanent state of self' because you're constantly changing as a person as you learn.

Anyways, sorry for the rambling, just wanted to let you know you're not alone, sorry about the sexuality crisis, hope your day gets better

AWW thank you for taking the time to send this to me sweetheart. "sorry about the sexuality crisis" made me burst out laughing; I know you didn't mean it to be funny, you are being kind, but that's just funny to me that multiple people have sent me messages in my inbox/dms saying "so sorry you think you're a lesbian and it's making you spiral and cry in the middle of the night" like I just never expected people to send me a message like that haha. thank you, genuinely thank you for saying that though, because HOO i am STRUGGLING here bro... but it's ok i'll figure it out eventually <3

I have heard that's very much an aro/aspec feeling, to say "well I don't feel much preference for any gender, so maybe I'm bi/pan". I watched a video on being aro/ace and I related to some of it but not all of it entirely, so I know I'm... I'm ace, for sure. and I think I'm aro somewhat? Women™ are a big big big piece of the puzzle and the only reason why I don't feel fully aro is bc my attraction for them is There but at the same time I don't know if I feel it... as... much(?) as I am "supposed" to. or maybe my lack of physical affection/lack of feeling totally safe in a relationship is just bc of actual life experience and not like, who I am as a person? question mark???

I also think the realization that maybe I am not changing from bi into possibly lesbian, but I might not have been bi this entire time has hit me like a ton of bricks and is what's hurting me so bad. I was so confident I was bi for yeeeears, because I assumed I'd felt attraction to men, even if it was short and fleeting and practically nonexistent, but all this time I don't think I have felt attraction to men, not truly. but again -- does bisexuality have to include men? if I'm a cis woman I mean, would my bisexuality HAVE to include men or can it just be "I am attracted to literally anybody Except Men." and like, hey, maybe I haven't met enough men?? most of my experiences with men have been kind of um. uncomfortable and creepy. maybe I would feel attracted to a man in the future?? I used to joke with my other bi friends "oh my standards for men are SO HIGH, they have to meet a whole checklist of requirements for me to feel attraction to them, but for a woman all she has to do is exist and I'm in LOVE with her" and like... that could be.. a lesbian feeling sdfhldhfskldf or I'm just bi with 99.9999% attraction to women and 00.0001% attraction to other people, which might include men but like, only two unobtainable men who are celebrities (Ryan Gosling and Nick Blaemire) which don't count because they are... unobtainable celebrities. MAN WHO KNOWS!!!!! I DON'T KNOWS. is it still valid attraction to men if it's an unobtainable celebrity? It's still a real life man, right? Even if you know nothing would ever come of it? Me feeling romantically attracted (or I guess crushing lol) on a male celebrity feels just as real and big and pure and whole as me feeling romantically attracted to an obtainable non-celebrity woman standing in front of me. AGAIN, WHO KNOWSSSSS

I like how you said labels are a tool and I don't need to force myself to have one that doesn't fit anymore. I just feel really like, panicked if I don't have a label, for some reason. Maybe "WLW" or "Sapphic" can be my placeholder. I like being bi but man I don't know if I was ever bi at all if I don't feel attracted to men unless if they're celebs/fictional?? It doesn't feel like I've gradually changed into something else, it feels like I've woken up from a dream-like state where I thought I was bi but it turns out I'm actually Not. unless if, like I said, I could be bi with just, the strongest attraction to women possible LMAO. it doesn't help that I'm ace because it makes it a little more confusing to figure out. soooo many people have told me "oh it depends on who you'd sleep with" but I don't want to sleep with anyone. y'know. never ever had that urge, no matter the gender. WHY IS IT SO CONFUSINGGGG BRO

anyway thank you for sending me a message and helping me feel heard/listened to. giving you hugs and flowers 💖💐🌼🌸🌻🌷✨🌹🌺🌈✨💖💝💟🌸💘✨

[tirfpikachu]

why did i think i was trans? how did i delude myself? it's complicated.

hiya. i'm a butch lesbian woman who was confused since i was 12 year old ish and thought i was transgender -- mostly nonbinary though with some periods where i thought i was a trans guy -- up until 2022. many factors played in that whole mess that went on in my brain and my life. i'm going to be putting it ic because it's ridiculously long :') but feel free to reply etc. i hope stories like mine can make people feel less alone in these experiences and maybe help pain like mine be prevented. i want trans people to be respected while also doing what is best for society and women's rights too.

anyway. here's my story.

to preface, my feelings about transness in general -- i do love many trans people, i saw all the good parts their community has. i still think i do believe in gender dysphoria and sometimes surgeries/hrt being required to help people be safe and happy, but i think alternate routes need to be explored and we need to push for people to unpack their internalized misogyny and homophobia BEFORE they label themselves. the mix of LGB and TQ has created a lot of infighting. with homosexuality it's behavior-driven, attraction-driven, but with being trans it's an identity thing and a disconnect in the brain, it pushes you to change your body or presentation in some way, or ask others to alter how they naturally would treat you with different terms or pronouns. i think there will be more and more detransition stories like mine, the numbers will grow bigger and bigger unless something urgently happens. bc the trans community does NOT or at least VERY RARELY tells someone to slow down the questioning of their gender identity, they do NOT ever question anything, they don't look for internalized sexism in how people describe their gender, they don't do the work to unpack that stuff in their community. and that's just straight up dangerous.

so yeah. how did i get here? honestly i think part of why i thought i was trans was bc i wanted to fit in and i saw the gender euphoria in other ppl and was like wow i want a feeling like that. and honestly in my personal case it was just me having fun doing drag and lowkey cosplaying as male characters i was obsessed with in media. and my DID added to it too bc i would sometimes dissociate and feel that part of me was male or genderless and that's not bc those parts of me were trans that's bc they are a manifestation of my traumas!!! on top of my eating disorder, dysmorphia and psychosis. i really wish ppl i talked to as a teen on tumblr hadn't jumped to "omg you hate your body? you wish you were a boy under patriarchy? you have suuuch trans vibes bestie you'll make the perfect lil softboy uwu" bc then i was extremely lonely at school and at home and just felt soooo excited at the attention i felt happy to fit in, and honestly even my "dysphoria" after that was that i looked like other trans ppl and i thought they were the coolest, i just felt deep admiration. and then i'd show pics online and ppl would hype me up just bc i identified as trans. so then it snowballed into me feeling terrified to go out bc i was scared i'd get misgendered since i was visibly afab and all my friends were trans and very toxic sjw stereotype so i saw cis people as toxic and untrustworthy and i got to write angsty posts about it that got somewhat popular which i loved bc i'm a writer and i loved to fantasize and imagine a sense of justice alongside other warriors... not unlike how i felt joining into the trans community. when deep down i knew i was being the annoying little sister trying to gain older kids's approval and trailing behind lol. the first trans person i met online was this awesome trans guy who did photography and he was a good bit older and i just wanted to look like him so bad so that he would like me. he ended up ghosting me. but i was still obsessed w him so i looked up trans stuff and fell in head first without even a questioning phase :/ which is 100% on me of course! i was just a very impulsive kid and the trans ppl around me lived in this big colorful world full of identities and drama and unconditional support... but i do wish someone had slowed me down and showed me alternate paths, the path of just being gnc.

i was also like. okay i know i'm queer but idk how, but i want to be in this community bc i'm so lonely (as a baby dyke). so i looked at the most opposite identity ever and gay trans man was the furthest away i could go from myself & my gay attraction & my body & my female masculinity. i was constantly dissociated, constantly. i was living in my yaoi fantasies lol like the "perfect" romance bc it wasn't hetero stuff which had scary power dynamics, and it also wasn't lesbian bc that hit too close to home and i'd start to have panic attacks. so i avoided those, tho sometimes i'd read fanfics w a side lesbian relationship.... but pretended to hate them and not care at all. that was actually part of me accepting my attraction to women, like moving slowly over to lesbian ships in fanfics and finally seeing what it would be like. it felt too good. so then i repressed it again or only showed my lesbian attraction when flirting with men online lol. bc of course there needed to be a voyeur, otherwise it's too real and gross and bad. tfw trauma and internalized lesbophobia.

but yeah anyway me obsessing over yaoi really made me think of boys very fondly -- always boys, never men -- and feel this deep warm happy feeling in my stomach. thinking of two boys together was total equality bc there was no woman involved, so no misogyny or weird "too real" feelings. if it had a woman i'd eventually have a total freakout bc i would keep pretending i was the guy in that scenario, which was BAD bc it made me sound like a DYKE. and boys had an actual personality (bc there very few genuine complex female characters at the time so they were all dumb or mean or bland) and they could do sooo much more than girls could so they were Better somehow. but of course if u say boys are better you're a misogynist, so i wanted to BE a boy so i could talk about how much i loved boys. and i loved boys bc i admired them. i wished i could be a "more male" version of a girl. i wanted to embody maleness so that i could create myself a better girlhood. and not even call it girlhood, so it was even cooler. i didn't want to be like the other girls, who were all loser straight boy crazy bullies. or even if there were cool girls with me, they would just annoy me (bc i was always depressed and exhausted from mental illness and untreated disabilities and it made me irritable). so yeah. boys were it. specifically boys bc men sounded almost triggering from my misogyny trauma. like men are the kind that hurt you. but boys are soft and sweet and special and harmless. they're the right kind of male person. the good ones. and they have such vivid relationships with one another and are such complex beings, unlike girls. and now that i'm a boy i'm gonna be the boy with the best morals and no toxic masculinity whatsoever, just a soft little uwu bean with a soft beautiful very typically girly flat chest, like an afab person before puberty, and no facial hair of course except for maybe a slightly lower voice and less fat (i thought it was good riddance at the time bc i was anorexic lol so that just reinforced it). i had this perfect image of myself. but it was always wavering, so i would never feel fully secure in my gender identity but i also couldn't lose my grip and question that i'm not nonbinary/trans bc then i'll have to accept that i'm an afab lesbian with a boring ass female gender. and i would have to disappoint everybody, and worst of all make them look bad for detransitioning. 

but yeah.... i actually am feeling less bad abt just being a bland woman. like i don't need to be special, i can blend in and people won't hurt me bc i'm a loser like in highschool. normality and domesticity are blissful actually, like i'm Just A Girl and i'm basic af or whatever. but there's other boring, gnc girls, and they're cool but they're also in the highschool situation of being "not the kind of girl that gets asked out and family is kinda broke and not noticeably pretty and has failing grades and untreated disorders so therefore an even bigger loser." so yeah i wanted to be different. to be noticed and thought about, and go against the grain. ie, cishet normative things. usually secretly, but then at some point i came out to my family and they got transphobic but also just said gross things to me that made it so that even if i had been wobbly on my identity i now didn't trust them to talk about it so i just repressed feelings and held onto a trans identity even harder. but then i started thinking of girls a LOT and envying lesbian women. who didn't have to worry about gender stuff, and also got to be gay in a way that... suddenly i noticed could be cool too. i had never allowed myself to notice it. but then i did. and i freaked out bc i was dating someone who wasn't a woman kgdkjgk and it felt transphobic af so i just resolved myself that i MUST be trans.

i was deep in the closet lesbian-wise and my brain tricked itself bc i just wasn't ready to accept being a lesbian. i just wasn't. i've only become ready this year!! and that's around the time that my ex broke up w me (or well we both came to the conclusion that i'm a lesbian so being w them would be wrong, and that it turns out they're only into men/enbies). and then i tried to be nonbinary again bc i wanted to get back w them so bad but then i realized it just wasn't me, and i started getting comfy w gay womanhood. and i came to terms with being a single butch lesbian!!! i'm so much better now that i'm radically accepting myself. it was a LOOONG stressful upsetting journey bc i wasn't being myself. but now i am being myself. and i'm clumsy af and kinda dumb and SUUUUPER inexperienced as both a girl loving girls and also just an adult woman in general. like being an adult woman is HARD and idk what i'm doing and i'm barely scraping by and i'm so behind everyone else. but now i gotta deal with it, actually deal with my issues :/ no more internalized lesbophobia & misogyny!! society often defeminizes girls like me and takes womanhood away from marginalized women but no!!! i'm still a woman. i'm weird but i'm just a weird woman and that's fine. some girls are freaks and weirdos and something different but not the differences that were considered "cool" on leftist tumblr as whichever community is most oppressed and has the most funky flags and ultra-microlabels. and i'm sorry to say, it's embarrassing as hell. but i did fetishize transness. i did think of trans people as unironically cooler than regular non-bigoted close-minded cis people, more interesting, better morality, cooler, smarter, etc. and i wanted to make friends and trans/enby online communities were super vibrant in fandom spaces that i was in. so yup. there it is. i'm a trans faker actually, though i was super out of it during it all, i wasn't doing it consciously. i just was ignoring my true identity, being a butch lesbian woman. it's so sad that i felt the need to repress myself like this, it breaks my own heart to think about it. but i did repress myself. i was soooo cruel to myself and was bigoted towards myself. but never again. never again!!! nope sir!!!

another thing -- i think i also used having a trans/nonbinary identity as a way to have an excuse to go no-contact with my abusive family. i was told they were bigots for being vaguely supportive but confused about trans stuff and struggling with the vocabulary and sudden identity discourse, asking embarrassing questions (that i had no answers for bc i wasn’t actually trans but ofc real trans people would) when i told them i was a boy so i get to use that as a reason not to talk to them. bc otherwise they just would never leave me alone. at least that’s how i rationalized it lol. so yeah. here i am. a complete doofus, with very little bit of stubble coming out of my chin that i have to shave daily. and a slightly transmasc-typical voice. i completely blew it, i repressed being a lesbian soooo deeply even though my family wasn't even that homophobic, all things considered, so i definitely could've lived as my true self. i was just ashamed and stubborn and believed all the things in the media and from homophobes. and thought ppl would be scared of me bc the only other lesbian in school was a creep. idk. it's all so embarrassing. but there ya go.

[nothorses]

I was wondering if you had some insight into disclosing your gender identity on university/professional applications. I’m done with my first degree but I wasn’t out at the time. I’m still not out to my family. I’m applying to nursing school right now and one of the questions on the application is if I feel underrepresented in the nursing field. Well, I’m transmasc and I wanted to tell them that. I think there’s a huge shortage of trans medical professionals, which directly impacts the quality of care we receive. A huge source of motivation for me is being able to give people the care that they deserve that i never got to experience. But I’m worried that this information either will not remain secure (like professors or administrators may have access to it), or it will be used to reject my application (which I would have no proof of and no recourse against). I’m just so fed up. Like, the application has a special little gender and pronouns box for me to fill out and I have to pick if I come out or if I stay in the closet. I also don’t understand the “state your gender question” bc they asked for gender not biological sex, which, ok I guess that’s progressive but I’d still have to explain to the admissions personnel why all of my official documentation is for a “woman.” It sure is safer to stay in the closet but I just don’t feel like Me.

I think this is up to you, and whether you feel it'll help you or hurt you in that process. I personally have been applying to grad schools while openly trans, but that's partially because I don't really have an option; I can't pass as a cis woman, and my legal name and gender are what they are. I also live in an extremely trans-friendly area and am applying to schools known for being progressive in that area, so it's not much of a worry for me, fortunately.

I would maybe try to figure out whether you can change those things later if you write them down one way now, and, frankly, whether you'll have more of an edge applying as a trans person or a cis person. And once you know how you feel about those things, then factor in how you'll feel about those smaller moments and what is going to be best for you, mentally and emotionally, as you go through that process! Some people are more okay with biting the bullet for now, and some people are not- and that's a very personal thing.

I will say that typically, your professors won't have access to your application information; those tend to be completely different departments. And I say this as someone who has had to bring professors paperwork by hand that says no, really, the disability access center did say I can have these accommodations- and who has had to send my own transcript to my own school on multiple occasions. It's less that they "wouldn't be secure" and more that they're not proactive enough to seek that information out in the first place, even before they'd be able to access it.

Good luck either way!! And congrats!! I hope everything goes well & you get into the programs you wants to!

[turing-tested]

ok since we're asking gender questions. ive had the thought for a while that i might be trans/nonbinary only because of trauma (specifically CSA). any thoughts on that? like.. am i valid ig?

honestly thats a question a little above my pay grade (which is $0) and also sort of out of like...the questions i’m comfortable answering re: questions of validity bc i dont like doling out validity and confirming or denying integral parts of people’s identity when i don’t really know them outside of my inbox BUT

the answer to that ranges between two concepts you have to ask yourself; “is this a bandaid for my trauma? am i using gender to escape from the circumstances surrounding it? am i using gender as a way to regain control? am i using gender to give myself a sense of safety?” and “does it matter and is it hurting me?”

those are questions i can’t really answer for you and you’ll have to ask yourself!

trauma can and does inform your perception of yourself as well as the interpretation of your relation to the world including possibly gender, but don’t confuse this with

ah. trauma caused my gender and it is therefore invalid

i feel this way now and that means it’s time to panic about the idea of therapy changing my gender once i begin processing my trauma

if gender isn’t something you’re born with then this means conversion therapy real and people should try to change my gender

that last one is specifically included because people are under the impression when i say “gender can change over time and be influenced by things and isn’t innate for some people” they tend to interpret this as meaning “you’re saying i wasn’t born this gender” rather than “it doesn’t matter what you are or if its unchangeable something should not be immutable or unchanging in order to be respected”

basically like....i can’t be like “yes 100% you are valid!” or “no you need to get therapy and address this” because like. responses to trauma are vast and the circumstances that cause trauma are just as varied especially bc for some people who used to identify as trans they go “i identified as x bc i was ashamed of the parts of my body and how my abuser used my gender as a factor of hurting me. i experienced dysphoria and shame and i interpreted myself as a different gender as a way of my brain seeking safety. things have changed for the better and i feel comfortable again identifying as my AGAB” and some people who still identify as trans will say the SAME thing except “but it doesn’t really matter for me personally, i’ve been to therapy and processed my trauma and i still feel the same way. regardless of what caused me to feel this way, i continue to do so, and i am allowed to live as comfortably as i can”

this is just a very long repetition of “i can’t answer that for you” and that you need to ask yourself some questions. just please know that regardless of anything, you are dealing with life in the way you know how and as long as you’re not doing it in ways that actively harm you or others i feel that you can’t be blamed for it, regardless of how you feel or what you do.

[adamsvanrhijn]

Hello there! I have been happily working through your incredible wtmy,tbws fic like a duck enthusiastically eating a bowl of peas, and was wondering if I may request a director’s commentary on the "never cared to 'til a minute ago. Always been a delicate bloke." conversation OR whatever scene from that fic that you most enjoyed writing? Thank you!

thank you! i am loving that simile very much.................. a duck enthusiastically eating a bowl of peas. amazing.

under cut because the fic itself is Adult Content haha

& also because this is Absurdly long... doing this meme for other people is really hammering in for me how much i rely on single line dialogue & short paragraphs lol. i’d love to work on that, but, womp womp, it hasn’t really been happening.

there is ... a lot going on in this scene lol. i feel very galaxy brain while writing this fic and it’s very pretentious, but i’m just gonna poke at the relevant bits around that quote instead of quoting The Whole Thing. this is from chapter 5 of when to my soul, the body would say ! 

context -- they’ve had morning sex in front of a mirror, then they went for breakfast at the place they’re staying, where richard is using a persona for Safety Reasons, & now they’re just hanging out and richard has been checking thomas out for the last 5-15 minutes without him noticing... until he comments on thomas smoking, and then thomas...

...lets his eyes wander, himself. 

Richard, fully dressed save for his shoes, is turned from the bureau, arm slung over the top of the chair. He did his hair this morning, because Evelyn Price would not have gotten up to anything in the night that could possibly alter the work of a week's worth of Brilliantine, and Thomas sort of hates it.

Not how it looks.

What it means. Or represents, rather. That they've got people other than each other upon whom they need to make good impressions, be they in service or just in the world at large.

right, so, this is like, the Ground Work Thoughts for thomas here as far as this particular interaction is concerned, because this is Very Much about perception / Being Perceived, and before the conversation even happens he’s paying richard a lot of attention, almost to the point of scrutiny. and richard is put together in a way that is very much not for thomas’s sake, it’s for they-left-the-room’s sake, and so he’s noticing that and that’s his frame of mind as they move on.

side note! hair styling oil & pomades really were worn for multiple days in a row. amazing. i could never. there should really be more in this fic about richard’s hair being all floraly <3 <3 <3 but there isn’t. womp womp. that would have been a Factor in this bit huh lol.

"You ever try it?" asks Thomas. Meaning smoking.

"No," he says. He tilts his head thoughtfully. "Never cared to 'til a minute ago. Always been a delicate bloke."

Thomas coughs impolitely.

"I don't see the harm in saying it, Thomas."

The feeling he can't describe leaves him, and a different one forms, in his gut instead of his lungs, an uncomfortable and unwelcome weight. Knotted.

aaaaand boom. thomas Did Not Sign Up For This. 

richard’s being 100% honest, just speaking casually, but thomas’s reaction is enough to get him on the defensive & he’s not an idiot so he knows why, but this is also not something he has lately put a lot of thought into. he’s Accepted It About Himself (we’ll get into this). thomas meanwhile is not ready to approach the subject of Delicacy for anybody he cares about, because to him it’s not a good description, it’s not something he aspires to be or wants to come across as, but he has many times in his life come across as it anyway. he’s Not Like That. 

so the word alone sticks in the wheels of his rolly suitcase emotional baggage, even though it’s richard using it on himself.

"Well, you clearly haven't got a problem with playing at being normal," Thomas says pointedly. Tough not to be pointed when he feels like this, because he's no stranger to it, is he. "If I didn't know better I'd be asking after your wife and baby like the rest of this place."

Lucky those people were leaving after breakfast; Thomas wouldn't be able to take two full days of it.

He hasn't asked about the photographs in the wallet yet, either, and he's not sure if he will.

normal being heterosexual, in this instance, which is contemporary vocabulary.

and richard is very good at playing straight when he’s not fearing for thomas’s life, so. it’s true! it’s a legitimate opinion. but it’s also a pretty significant logical leap that richard is about to pick up on, because that makes him uncomfortable, given thomas is basically saying.... you seem straight, what are you talking about, which isn’t going to make him feel excellent about the sense of identity he’s settled into. 

the rest of this is an Achievement Thomas Is Yet To Unlock so i won’t say much other than that this is not a significant addition to richard as the reader might know him from ywntmha, but, a lot of the big emotional work & development in that fic happens in 1929, with this meeting as the impetus... so it is very significant for thomas, at this point. we’re still in january and they still have a ways to go both in the next 24 hours and in the rest of the year.

Richard raises his eyebrows. "And what's that got to do with it?"

He shrugs.

It should be obvious. It would be obvious, to anyone who bothered to think about it for more than half a second.

that’s not a good faith question; richard’s goading him into actually saying the underlying thought. on one level thomas knows that, which is why he doesn’t say that part out loud and only thinks it.

"It's pretending, is all it is," Richard continues, a little too gentle.

"Don't call yourself what they call you," Thomas returns, a little too sharp.

and since goading doesn’t work, new tactic on richard’s part here, and though thomas can tell it’s intentional it does work on him, so.

writing this was interesting for several reasons but one of the big ones is, and anybody who’s been following me since Before da will probably know this, i like... have very little patience for discussion about personal identity, especially when it comes to reclamation ? i am way more interested both on a personal and academic level (bc i can’t lie about that lmfao, hashtag english major) in community + external ideas imposed on people.  

and this might seem like a very 2010s conversation for them to be having, but... this period of time was really the Dawn of queer/lgbt identity Concepts: words were being coined, communities were coming together in new ways, in continental europe & the us especially there was a lot of rapid development and transition here owing to various roaring 20s factors, and i think richard given his situation would have been exposed to that, for one, but also just, it’s gonna be in both their environments because it was getting to be a thing from the victorian era w/ the medicalisation of homosexuality and things are only expanding. 

"delicate” is a euphemism, not a slur, but it has hella connotations & they are both fully aware of them.

"Rather it be me saying it than them."

Blasé like it doesn't mean a thing at all.

You should know better, he wants to say, you should know better than anyone.

"Don't see how you can feel that way when it's not true to begin with."

thomas’s Only Gay Friend Is My Boyfriend is showing here lol, this is shining light on a gap in what he knows about richard & what he Thinks he knows about richard, so there’s a dissonance. and he sees richard as Masculine on a conscious or subconscious level, and he’s in a These Are Antonyms place re “delicate”. some black & white thinking going on here.

& i feel like the other part is probably fairly explanatory but, richard gets a sense of control and self-assurance by using a word for himself that might not be kind coming out of other people’s mouths and Being Okay With That.

"Thomas…"

They lock eyes.

A tense moment passes.

It is Richard who breaks first. He turns back to the desk with a small sigh.

"This has very little to do with you," he says carefully.

richard, knowing thomas as he does, is able to tell that he’s taking this personally, because he Is, so that’s that there, but again this is something he’s already settled in himself and so there’s also an element of having to justify again this thing he’s already figured out, which he isn’t exactly fond of.

anyway i said i’d get into this -- there’s a lot of interesting like, Societal / Subcultural / Etc politics with regards to being a male servant in this day and age and Gender In General, and valets especially -- throughout the time period leading up to this but ESPECIALLY in the 1920s when there are fewer men in service than there ever have been and more and more kinds of, say, manufacturing jobs as the automobile industry picks up & labour saving devices start having more complicated parts, and probably yknow most of the boys he went to school with are in that or mining or railways, so he’d have thought about it earlier on in his life probably. or Has rather. ftr his brother was in the carriage works i don’t think that ever comes up but there’s a lot there lol. there’s some family stuff in but level in time that we’ll get to........... someday. ANYWAY. 

the point is.

valeting is an effeminate job.

like, point blank. i’m seeing that idea both in sources specifically about servants & just general of-the-era stuff about great houses. when you’re talking about gay men in service a lot of them are valets, and some of that lines up w stereotypes & common lifestyle habits of gay men in general -- looking after hair shoes and clothing, obvs, attention to detail in physical appearance (note that men who Get Valeted also care about details, but they are not the ones who actually have to think and decide about it; whereas their wives are probably giving their ladies’ maids more directions as to hair styles and dresses etc etc because they’re expected to care about that part of the process in a way that men weren’t), exposure to social mores in a variety of different contexts, being well-connected within both the communities that help him get work done: tailoring, hairdressing, shoemakers, drapers, etc and in General, having softer skills like sewing and whatnot. and you’re unmarried and looking after the presentation of another man so there’s some like, desexualisation stuff there.

and thomas and richard would both know this very, very well. they’d have encountered the idea both as men in service and as gay men and especially as gay men in service.  

this richard has been working at buckingham palace for more than twenty years at this point, minus his war backstory which....... is complex and i haven’t gotten into it very much anywhere but he was getting cosy with some higher ups and having To Do about presentation there too and like, was in the service corps which was non-combat supply lines ....... and apprenticing valeting / actually (non-principally) valeting the Literal King Of England for nine.

he has had a LOT of time to get over his shit.

he not only likes his job* but he’s also very good at his job, literal 2nd highest valet position in frankly The World, which is fucking wild, and that combined with his Childhood of like, being second best to his older brother who was like, a perfect human being so far as he could ever tell and that included being very traditionally like, athletic and Leaderly and having-a-sweetheart-in-your-youth-you-then-marry when he was more interested in, you know, story telling and Arts N Crafts (i’m being tongue in cheek) and just generally not ... especially into the Boys Will Be Boys stuff............................

he’s fine with it! he is Fine with being called delicate, it’s helped him get over a lot of his issues just to decide oh, this actually fits my personality and the trajectory my life has followed, so i’m going to just accept that and move on ! etc. 

but thomas is not anywhere near there for himeslf and therefore he isn’t for other people, too, because one of thomas’s Problems is that he hates seeing other people comfortable and happy when he isn’t... and that even applies to richard, because love does not make us perfect. 

*he wants to leave service and he’s tired of the constant scrutiny of working where he does for whom he does, but he does like his actual duties in a lot of ways.

well here’s a novel. i hope this satisfies you!!! <3 <3 <3

[noctomania]

Expression (please excuse the novel length)

I remember back in elementary school when my school district voted on whether to turn my school to uniform policy. It was a public school and i had never felt so attacked before then or felt such a strong opinion about something personally. Mind you, i was maybe...10-12 yrs old (if that). This was a time when my self expression was about to take off and bloom. Suddenly though it was halted by uniform policy. I had heard both sides of it and valid points existed on both sides but i still feel it was wrong to enact because i am an advocate for open self expression (i mean without encroaching on other's rights so like my self expression couldn't be to sit on stranger's laps without invitation for example), mostly because that is how i connect best with people. I can't easily just strike up convo with strangers (trust me i have tried). Back then, it was usually a snarky message on my shirt that would draw people in to talk ("good morning is an oxymoron" or any emily strange stuff for example) I've always relished in (and grateful for) having autonomy over my appearance, it's one of the most rewarding things to be able to almost turn yourself inside out and tell the world "see? Do you see me now?" Whereas uniforms...they felt like a prison, like the erasure of my individuality. It also made everyone else seem so 2-D. Schools sometimes had trouble with students showing up in tshirts advertising alcohol or with inappropriate language on them, which is where I think the uniform idea came through most strongly. The economic hardship was left to the families though. Luckily i was allowed to wear pants and not forced into a skirt. I highly doubt guys would have been allowed to wear skirts though, but i never experienced any situations of that at my particular school. I wasn't social enough though to be sure it never happened. Something similar did occur in my high school years later though but instead of a skirt it was my friend and he would wear makeup but was repeatedly sent to detention for it because it was "distracting" I remember also in high school when i was going to be getting my senior picture which I didn't want in the first place. The senior photos were binary traditional and you had to wear this funny neck garment according to your, or what they assumed to be your, gender. This was all before i knew trans and i just knew i preferred the tux one to the one that looked like a dress. The photographer refused unless i got permission from the journalism teacher and I think the only reason she allowed me was because i was a "good quiet" student. But she was sure to let me know she felt it was highly inappropriate. I remember when i got a free leatherman jacket from being in my high school book club (i am The Coolest™) and we got to choose what name we wanted embroidered on the back. I'm proud to say i have my current name, andy, on it because even though the book club leader/librarian did try to push back on my request and tried to sway me into putting my birth name on it, i was insistent. I still have it and still wear it and otherwise i may not have even taken it. (It was free so turning it down wouldn't have been a big deal to me though I woulda been bummed to not get one even though they kinda forced me to take one anyway? It's complicated and thats all besides the point) See I'm someone who craves expression. I bottle up enough shit. Some things i wanna wear on my sleeves. Or my face. Or my hair. My gender expression has been pretty strong since day one. Not to say I wouldn't or have never gone more feminine in my appearance, it's just to say that i have not been the type to adopt an appearance based on what someone else says i am or should be. I don't feel the need to be absolutely masculine 100% i dont fear that which is feminine or androgynous. And i still remain critical of the unnecessary binary that is forced in societies. The products "for men💪/for women🌼" the bullshit of women just cannot be as strong as men the bullshit that women are inherently emotional moreso then men the absurd concept that to be a woman means to have a pussy and tits and to be a man you needa have a package (because clearly you just lose your identity when you get breast or ovarian or testicular cancer). "SO DUH ABOLISH GENDER SO MEN AND WOMEN CAN BE TREATED THE SAME" To turn a blind eye to the differences and intricacies along the gender SPECTRUM (or any innate identity spectrum) is to pretend we don't all have our own distinctive experiences and issues and is in fact a rejection of them. My gender is expressed how i see fit. Perhaps it is quite masculine and yes i did in fact get some surgery but no surgery is going to turn me cis, no hormones will remove all the experience i had as a AFAB for 20yrs no surgery is going to change my interests. I didn't seek hrt or surgery because of anyone else or to spite anyone or to attack anything, i did it to achieve a sense of Self I had never experienced before due to the limitations of my physical expression. I did it because i know how my mind perceives my body and it's never fit right until now. Like ive been a mismatched set of Tupperware that's finally been organized properly. My lid fits, i am a complete set on my own now, as opposed to trying to fit the mold of other's lids. I didn't change to be someone else, i changed my appearance to match who I Am. FORCED gender roles/expression is detrimental, not because of the gender, but because it's forced; because it's someone exerting (or trying to) inappropriate control where they have no right. Are cisfem who choose to take on the ultimate 50s nuclear family housewife life/look any less valid than a cisfem who refuses to fit any gendered life/looks? Or should both be seen as equal and valid in their accession of and right to their autonomy to identify themselves and express themselves how they see fit without any external criticism/dictation as to what is "right" or "appropriate" based on antiquated and/or irrational factors/ideologies? The point of identity is nobody can tell you what​/who you are. Perhaps they could guess, but that doesn't mean they are right or that they have authority over your identities. it's not a problem that gender exists. It's a problem that is has been monopolized and mutated and mythologized by people (yes of all varieties bc ideologies know no bounds) trying to dictate other's lives. It's a problem that it has been used as a tool to oppress rather than express. I've met just as many misogynistic women as i have men or even trans and non-binary folk. Everyone has the ability to be oppressive of someone else. When you have been oppressed, or fear being oppressed, you might take on an oppressive role yourself as a form of offense before you ever have to face bein on the defense, if you aren't critical of or moderate yourself. Though the effort may come from a place of self-preservation, it can still cause unnecessary harm and even be counterproductive, if not hypocritical. If we approach the problem for what it is (insertion of opinion where it is unwarranted and unnecessary) instead of attacking it's symptoms (gender expression), we will get to the real resolution with less inner-community squabbling. Don't pretend like you can tell someone who they are. You can argue your point without doing this. Don't pretend you are the ultimate source of knowledge for what you are fighting for. If it were all up to you there wouldn't be a movement, just you. Terfs and radfems may believe i should not have transitioned. Perhaps they feel I could have easily just continued to be a "tomboy", as i was frequently referred to as, and just bind my chest for the rest of my life and never feel a real connection with my Self. I would have remained in a state of self loathing and not only forever feeling less than i was meant to be (not because of my female form but because I wasn't able to be my Self) but forever having to face people identifying me incorrectly and always feeling that disconnect in communication when someone rejects or denies your identity. While being trans does still make me (only slightly due to passing standards and me being white) a target for hate crimes, before resolving my identity i was more likely to take my own life on top of still being a target for harassment due to being untraditional in my expression. Me being me, I've never had an issue with bein an untraditional person (very little about me is traditional), but when you have an inner war going on and you know you can do something good about it, I would never sway someone away from resolving that. Honestly i felt more a distance from feminism before transitioning because i never felt right if i tried to "proudly proclaim" bein a woman/womyn. i felt like a fraud which ultimately made me question if i was a feminist at all. Like I didn't not like women, and i was/am a proud feminist, i just didn't feel as if i was a woman and felt more like i was lying when the words came out which did to an extent feel like a form of betrayal to women and it wasn't til much later i understood it wasn't. I tried various forms of gender expression as a female but even in the best case scenarios it didn't sit right. Not knowing who you are foundationally makes it hard to know how you feel about others or how to accept others. Empathy and compassion require a certain level of knowing yourself so you can identify with another on our human level. If you're at fault with yourself it can be hard enough to love yourself much less anyone else. I feel trans-exclusionary feminists are stuck in that same stage i was stuck in when i was resolving my gender identity. But removing the issue from the context of gender kind of helps. Its not the identity itself that i hate, it's being forced into an identity i am not, never have been, and never will be. Imagine being forced to be a different person. How people identify you is all wrong and any time you try to assert your identity it is rejected. It's not an identity you can change (like a religion or a political leaning that may or may not change), but it's something not readily apparent, or is obstructed by the predisposition people may have about you based on what they see you as. You can call a bear a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat but that's not going to change the fact that the bear is a bear, not going to change the bear's needs or instincts (reference from The Bear That Wasn't) I guess my point overall is: distinctive identity titles are born out of necessity, because thise identities exist. Identities also present the opportunity for us to recognize one another's differences and to learn how we connect and where we lack understanding of one another. Identities allow us short hand how to express ourselves verbally, yanno when interpretive dance is out of the question or inapplicable. Expression of identity is integral to feeling a sense of Self, to be able to trust yourself, and to be able to trust others. Identity should never be erased whether it be gender, sexual orientation, race, ability etc. Before I understood my gender identity i was compensating my lack of masculine appearance with overly-masculine attitude instead, which inevitably lent itself to toxic masculinity. I would catch myself acting that way sometimes and earnestly didn't know what was wrong with me. Now i know i was insecure. Now, I'm much more neutral and comfortable in my attitude since I'm not feeling the need to compensate for my appearance with my attitude. My transition was good for me and those around me. It allowed me to be a little less concerned with my issues and more concerned with the issues of a wider community. So I know this is long and I'm sorry. I don't expect anyone to have read this and i doubt that anyone who disagrees with me read it thoroughly (3 times top to bottom) as they should (to avoid making themselves look impulsive and irrational or cherry picking) before asserting their opinion, but here it is now and it's not goin anywhere. Thank god it's my weekend coming up... (Please if you respond do so respectfully. If you only wish to spit at me, do so in a direct message and leave the notes on this open for respectful conversation/debate, thank you kindly!)