#i think this is the first time i've ever openly identified with it but i've been hinting for years
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crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.
i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.
in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.
i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.
i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.
plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.
the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.
we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.
i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.
a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.
today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.
loved beyond thinking.
#spilled ink#writeblr#personal#please don't ask me to talk on my experience on the spectrum lol. i hate how ppl talk to me about it#i really try not to write so specifically about it#bc inevitably someone talks to me like im a child#i think this is the first time i've ever openly identified with it but i've been hinting for years#i might delete this. feels big.#the thing is that being on the spectrum actually IS a spectrum#and if u say ur autistic#inevitably someone makes an assumption about ur needs/symptoms#please do not treat me differently than u usually would. like.... we can tell when you do#and like i mention. i do appreciate the effort. i do truly appreciate the effort.#but it still feels like...#when i was blind. sometimes people kind of did the same-ish thing.#they'd find out i was blind and start talking really loudly?#and while i KNOW they're just trying to help. it would be like. i'd be trying to find#the right way into a building (sometimes only 1 door is unlocked and i couldn't see the signs posted about where to go)#and ppl would be like ''OH UR BLIND? YES SO THIS IS A DOOR. IT OPENS INTO THE BUILDING. IT IS LOCKED NOW."#''A DOOR CAN BE FOUND IN MANY LOCATIONS.''#and it feels like. when i admit to being autistic#someone comes screeching into my life being like THIS IS A DOOR.
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I've noticed something in the discussion around Gerard Way and trans identity that I am officially fed the fuck up with. While talking about Gerard's outfits from the second leg of the tour, people love to use use the line "clothes ≠ gender" as a gotcha for those of us who are keen to the fact that they aren't cis. This pisses me off for three main reason plus a fourth mini reason that's more of a history blurb than anything else.
Before we start anything, Gerard has been out as not cis for the better part of 8(!) years now. To not acknowledge that is doing them a disservice. Some of you have purposely chosen to ignore that fact. Right out the gate that's fucked up. Ok now we can proceed.
First off, you're right. Clothes do not, in fact, equal gender. I know this, and it sounds like you'd like me to believe that you know this. So forgive me for being a little confused when you go on anon after they're photographed wearing what you dub to be "masculine clothing" (i.e. anything that's not a skirt/dress with heels) and tell me I'm an idiot for implying that they aren't a cisgender man.
Secondly, the concept that clothes don't equal gender in only true to us very recently. If you think that Gerard Way, a 45 year old ex-Catholic Gen-X'er who grew up in an wildly conservative suburb of north New Jersey doesn't have a different relationship between clothing and gender than you, a 14-to-20-something year old who hasn't closed tiktok in three days and averages 0.3 minutes of critical thinking per week, then you're extremely delusional and self-centered. People are socialized in entirely different ways. As humans, our experiences are not in any way universal. What doesn't mean anything to you means everything to someone else. Maybe you don't equate femininity with skirts and dresses, but I guarantee you a 45 year old who has openly struggled with gender identity their entire life does in some capacity. This is not a bad thing.
Thirdly is that in your attempt to sound as woke and morally upright as possible, you're unintentionally (or intentionally, seeing as a considerable number of you are terfs,) discrediting and invalidating the way someone experiences gender euphoria because you personally don't get it. Gerard Way has only ever said "I don't use labels" in response to people implying that they're cishet. If your first reaction to seeing someone who could even potentially identify under the transfem umbrella experiencing visible gender euphoria in a dress is to say "oh well clothes don't equal gender, so I'm going to assume that he's a man in a dress until he explicitly outs himself", then congratulations! You're transphobic. Because that's the thing. When you use the rhetoric of clothes ≠ gender in that context, it becomes crystal clear you don't actually care about trans people. You just want to sound like the smartest person in the room. And you're willing to throw GNC trans people under the bus in order to achieve that goal.
I think people have forgotten big time that "don't assume my gender" originally meant "don't assume I'm cis", because now the way people interpret the rhetoric (don't assume my gender, clothes ≠ gender, I don't use labels, etc.,) and use it to prove a point only use it as if to say "it's inherently wrong and creepy to identify and acknowledge when people aren't cis. Cis is the default and the only safe assumption. Anything else is offensive and crossing a major boundary" and you can tell it's because they view transness as an insult to someone's character. We have to, collectively, stop viewing transness as an allegation you either have to beat or bear with. Alongside that, we have to stop assuming cisness.
#mcr#gerard way#gerard gender wars#Gerard gender wars ii#I could say more and get meaner but I won't. for now.
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sometimes i think about the early days of me identifying as aro, and often i try hard not to preach about The Old Days because it's not like they were better, but i think for a lot of people newer to the community it's not always clear how surreal the past few years have been for me and many others.
i'm NOT that old. i'm only in my 20s and i've known i was aroace for less than ten years. but sometimes even that is enough to make me feel ancient. i remember when there were just, basically no dedicated aro spaces. very few aro blogs on tumblr. impossible to find aro merch, barely any aro creators on youtube and the like. we hadn't even unified around the current flag yet, in fact we were a couple iterations behind. ace stuff too, there were a lot more ace blogs and youtubers etc. than aro ones, and AVEN was already a long-standing thing, but still far less than there is now.
i'm sure if i was a bit more persistent and a lot less 15 and scared i could have found more out there, but the point stands that aro communities in 2014 were extremely insular. offline, i was the only aro person i knew, and i was deep in the closet. i only learned about being aro by accident, and i had to navigate it on my own. it took me more than a year to actually say it out loud, to myself in the mirror, because i couldn't externalize it. there was never a moment of relief at realizing who i was. it was a dawning understanding of something i always knew, and then it became my deepest secret, because there was nobody i could tell who'd understand. i didn't make aro friends online until much later.
the aspec community online, on tumblr especially, was decimated in those intervening years, and i had the "benefit" of already being closeted during those times, so i avoided the worst of the harassment that people who were openly aspec online were getting. but it did push me further into the closet and leave me with significant issues. but then, things got a little better. aro blogs started popping up. in fact, i won't name names because i'll embarass us all but if you're seeing this and you ran an aro blog in 2017ish, thank you, because you are literally the reason i decided it was safe to be openly aspec on tumblr again, and here i am.
of course, nothing is ever perfect. every community has both internal and external problems, and we're still working on ours. we've got a lot to fight for. and every time i think about all the culture and terminology we lost in the mid 2010s, i do get a little sad. but during pride month this year, i drove past a storefront that had pride flags painted in the window, and i almost started crying on the bus, because one of them was an aro flag. it was the first time i'd ever seen an aro flag in person that i didn't own.
for me, being aro was very isolating for years and sometimes still is. it's surreal (in a good way!) when i hear that kids now have multiple out aro friends irl, because it was only ever just me. but i think about myself as a young teenager, alone trying to string together an aro pride bracelet for myself in my bedroom, and to have known that in 8 years i'd be out, i'd have a community, i'd cry on public transit during pride month... well, i just wouldn't have believed it at all.
#aro#aromantic#aro community#op#long post#no literally if you were here in 2017 even if you don't have an aro blog now even if you no longer id as aro#i owe you one and will never forget that#y'all were the bravest people in the world to me
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"I mean, I can't imagine being able to function at that level while your mom was- you know."
Jules. Jules sweetie. Jules, best girl in Psych. Imagine what must be an aspect of his daily life to be capable of doing so. I know you won't but I am begging you to take that as a clue, a hint, a sign. Please recognize what that means. Please see the spiral before it happens, please please identify the underlaying pain, please recognize that Shawn is always playing pretend and running from himself.
I just- I've been thinking a lot about Shawn's masking lately, maybe because it's my first time watching Psych since I realize I'm most likely Autistic, but it's hitting harder now when his stuff is so clear and Openly Acknowledged but still so overlooked and-and glossed over. Do you think he ever wonders how people don't just see right through him? Do you think he ever feels transparent, and like it's not that no-one else can see, but just they they don't want to? That it'd be inconvenient for them to look too close so they look away?
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Conversion Class tonight was basically one giant therapy session for all of us, given current events. It was ... Heavy, to say the least; my Rabbi was really frank tonight, saying:
It is both worse than you think, and yet better than you think, and there is no middle ground. Your life is now constantly in danger and will never not be in danger. But at the same time, there is also more people working to keep you safe than ever before. Still ... There is something unique about the way people hate Jews.
This is not a litmus test for how badass you are, though, or how much you love God. You do not have to openly identify as a Jew. You never did- especially if you are another minority in addition to being Jewish. Especially if it means keeping yourself safe (or safer).
A lot of people are really worried. But it was nice to listen to a few people who felt like they were scared at first, but who also felt like they couldn't back down now; like this made them feel like they had to lean further into their Jewishness more proudly after being berated by stuff like "The Jews deserve this" from friends, family, and strangers for weeks on end now.
It was also just nice hearing that I wasn't alone. I mean, don't get me wrong. I knew I wasn't because we've been talking about in the Pomegranate Collective Discord ever since it started. I know I'm not actually the only one hearing this kind of stuff day in and day out, and that it's happening all over ... But it's also very different having your experiences echoed directly by people in your own state, in your same Conversion class, who attend your Synagogue ... That's not to discount the Collective. It just hits ... Different. You know?
Rabbi also said something really poignant about having a level of compassion for everything and everyone right now that was honestly far more nuanced and appropriate than the (incredibly hypocritical) "It's not my place to tell the oppressed how to fight back" bullshit that I've been hearing from unaffected Westerners:
When no one else is looking out for your civil rights and services, you tend to naturally follow those who are helping you, even if they are helping you badly- like criminals, and terrorists ... This happened with the Italian Mafia. It happened with the Jewish Mob. And yes, it's happening with H*M*S; it is natural to gravitate towards help- even if it comes from poor places- because in that space and in that moment? Any help is better than no one helping you at all.
Anyways, one really great thing that did at least come out of tonight's class, was that I finally got to reconnect with the lady from my Conversion Class; the one that I accidentally met at Synagogue during Rosh Hashanah, who actually turned out to be living literally blocks from me.
I private messaged her during class tonight and exchanged emails with her, since I wound up kicking myself for not originally doing it when we met at Rosh Hashanah service. She wound up giving me her phone number right off the bat in her first email. So now we're texting back and forth, and talking about making the drive down together for Synagogue. I'm excited!
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Ok but why is there always a reason. When it's about macro all of a sudden it's oh why should I care about the sob story of some bihettie who couldn't ever live through a day of real homophobia. When it's ppl like inosa or swagy or radgoose or countless others getting told disgusting things like that their bfs should kill them, it's laughed off too and it's like oh go back to your hettie world if you're so mad. When it's about catboy it's like oh why should I care if we make fun of the SA of some moid thats praxis actually. When it was ppl saying bi women are just like tims and they're weaponizing their rape it's oh why can't you bihets learn to read none of that matters. When there was a big burst of a bunch of people getting openly attacked by "blackpills" it was oh this is just so online why are the bihetties playing the victim. These ppl are just coming out to advance the position that they won't go after you no matter what you say about bihets. Like the refusal to condemn anything at all unambiguously is very much the point.
Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that people these days (esp young people) are not any more progressive than other generations... I honestly think their politics and values are possibly more conservative than 10-20 years ago - these are just my feelings as a low income bisexual woman who is pretty white passing but I've had friends of other races (esp older friends in their 30s-40s) talk about how they feel the same thing in regards to how ppl are regarding race now and there's tons of posts circulating about how people are more homophobic than 10-20 years ago and we just lost roe v wade, income disparity is worse and social services are cut, etc etc etc
I feel like people such as you described above are highly individualistic and don't really have principles in the traditional way like "x behavior is bad" like if we use examples specific to the recent state of radblr re: the treatment of bisexual users, they don't think that homophobia and misogyny are unacceptable behaviors, they think its perfectly fine to leverage homophobia and misogyny against groups they see as "other" and don't identity with in some way. There's always a reason why the people I have marked as "other" deserve their mistreatment and why my own actions and the actions of people belonging to the group I identify with are excused from scrutiny.
A lot of the time in spite of how they call themselves "radical" (feminist or leftist or whatever) they express behaviors and ideals which are sooo extremely in line with the cultural norm for treating people of marginalized groups.
Examples relevant to this convo: Gay and bi women talking about how they "don't fuck with" bi women because they are untrustworthy and flaky partners and "most of them are basically straight and will end up with men anyway" so they don't need LGB community support
Also, determining that a woman's intimate relationships overshadow all of her other actions, and feeling entitled to information about a woman's sexuality to determine how valid you think her words are and how much support from her community she deserves.
Also, telling a victim of sexual assault and homphobia his problems arent real and he should be quiet about them.
Also, you can't trust women with partners and especially children to take part in feminism because they're going to by default center their lives around their male partners and children, so they're going to at best half-ass things and probably just decide to focus on their families instead anyway, may as well exclude them and write them off.
But its okay because the women in the first example were gay and bi, even though they're saying the same things straight men say about bi women. The second example is okay because it's statements and demands made by other women a lot of whom are gay and bi, not men or gossip rags. The third example is okay because it's gay/bi women speaking to a man. The last example is okay because it's said by other women who call themselves feminists, and not a sexist boss, even if they have the same way of thinking and similar actions with similar results.
And on one hand I get it, these people are trying to pass along their own hurt a lot of the time and they are usually legitimately telling themselves and each other that they aren't doing anything worse than maybe hurting the feelings of individual strangers. But they're adults who are behaving in unacceptable ways, and honestly some behavior should just be unacceptable, like... we should be kind to each other if we want people to be kind to us. Beyond that though, the concept of "punching up" has rotted people's brains and is ruining our community solidarity, is honestly a huge class consciousness issue, and they are doing more tangible harm than they're admitting to themselves.
I see this way of thinking as way more of an obstacle for dismantling these power structures than activists being imperfect in their personal decisions. Like, structural opression does not exist in a vacuum and spring forth from nothing, it requires a culture mindset to continue. Like, the whole deal with structural opression is that the opressed groups "deserve" their structural oppression in some way like it's always "justified". While the power structures/axes of opression/classes DO serve social and economic functions, human beings are emotional beings and most people aren't evil, to get social animals to hurt each other you have to socialize them to do so... like as feminists I think we know that at least.
"It doesn't matter if you shave because you prefer it, it perpetuates the expectation for women to remove their body hair and you are indirectly socializing other women as part of society" but then, if you have a good reason you can excuse homophobia or misogyny and suddenly it doesn't contribute to any larger power structures or the socialization of those in your communities?
If you have conditions in which you support homophobic or misogynistic (or racist and so on) behavior then first of all, you're perpetuating the cultural mindset and socialization that allow the abusive power structures to exist in the first place which beings me to my second point... it will lead to them being used against you by people who deem YOU as "other" at some point, unless you're the most privileged person on earth and there's no axis of oppression someone could decide to flip on you if they feel you deserve it and we all just keep crabs-in-a-bucketing each other
It's in our own best interests to treat each other as well as possible, that is my belief. Anything else is cutting off the nose to spite the face, who benefits?
#ik your point was more targeted but ive been thinking about this a lot lately#and imo it applies to the homophobia towarda lesbians on radblr and the racism as well#and like i said its pretty much the same outaide as well which is why it makes me roll my eyes when they fixate so much on being “radical”#if anyone reads all of this ily lets get married#txt#i also think everyone is like this now for psyop reasons but im being so normal rn#like it's just convenient isn't it
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hm i know this is a simplification but i have less letters so. i feel like the transandro discussion is a little too eager to gloss over truscum? like if fem/nonpassing transmascs talk abt the hurt they've experienced from the rest of the transmasc community we're "dividing the community" or "generalizing masc transmascs as truscum" & i don't know. it feels rough to hear constant calls for solidarity when we haven't received solidarity for decades
I have... a few thoughts here. and my brain is pudding because I've been doing grad school and teaching 8 hours a day for the last two weeks, so I apologize for any tonal issues, but please know I am trying to convey compassion and a desire for connection above all else.
okay.
First: "masc transmascs" are also targets of transmedicalism if and when we do not experience the Right Amount Of Dysphoria, the right "symptoms", etc. It's a complex issue, and I do think truscum often assume I'm likely to be On Their Side based exclusively on the fact that I sometimes say, on the internet, on a fully anonymous platform and blog, that I am generally masc.
I also could not identify dysphoria in myself at all for years, and I don't really try or care to pass now. I make my decisions based on how I want to look. That happens to align with things that make me pass a lot of the time, but it's certainly not always- particularly among people who know what trans men are.
Point being that I was a direct target of truscum ideology for a long time, and I still am any time I openly talk about my feelings around dysphoria, passing, and what gender actually is.
Second: Truscum are not even entirely masc transmascs; there are transfem folks in that group (Blaire White??), and there are far more cis people feeding into that ideology than there are trans people. Ultimately, truscum ideology is not for masc transmascs; it's not even for dysphoric trans people. It doesn't benefit any of us. It only serves systemic transphobia and cissexism.
Not to mention- "masc transmasc" does not necessarily mean "dysphoric". Gender euphoria is an extremely important part of the conversation, and it's something all kinds of trans people experience!
Third: calling for solidarity is not the same as calling for universal forgiveness and acceptance of every single person within a demographic. Solidarity means recognizing that you are, at the end of the day, on the same team.
Masc transmascs are not your enemy. Masc transmascs, as a group, are not at fault for what has been done to you. Truscum are; and many of the victims suffering alongside you are masc transmascs.
When you tell those people that they are part of the problem too, that they are at fault too, and that they must repent for the crimes of the people who victimized them like they victimized you, you aren't doing anything but hurting and isolating more victims.
Fourth: "Transandrophobia" is for you, too. The word is yours. The oppression you face for being a fem and/or non-passing transmascs is a form of transandrophobia; as is the oppression masc transmascs face for being masc transmascs. It's the same system. It's a word for all of us.
Here's what it comes down to:
Masc transmascs are not victimizing you- truscum are.
Truscum are not oppressed for being truscum- but transmascs are oppressed for being transmasc.
You are oppressed for being transmasc.
The word is for you.
We can deal with the issue of truscum, recognize the harm that has been done by them, and work to repair our community- and all of that is solidarity. None of it stands in the way of recognizing the oppression all of us face, or the experiences all of us share.
But if you want to dig your heels in and wait for truscum to stop existing and for every single masc transmasc- regardless of their participation in or victimization by that group- to repent for the existence of truscum (a group who is also not entirely transmasc to begin with), before you ever recognize the oppression we all suffer, that's your prerogative.
But it's not the way forward.
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On Sunday's Villainy
I've seen various interpretations of Sunday by now and sometimes he's made out to be much sweeter than I see him and other times he's made out to be much more openly villainous than I see him. So I wanted to write down my thoughts on this - the ones I can presently think of, anyway.
First of all, I refer to him as villain because the Family is shady as all hell and he's somewhat presented as an opposing force to the protagonists we're supposed to identify with. That said, no one is the villain in their own story.
I don't see him as the muahaha kind of villain that will go out of his way to be evil. To me, he is the righteous kind of "villain" (if one even wants to call him a villain in the first place), which is arguably harder to deal with than the black and white fairytale type of villain. He doesn't see himself (/(his side) as the bad guy(s) nor is he interested in "doing bad things" or exploiting people for the sake of exploiting them (NOT TO SAY that the whole Dreamscape and whatever the family is doing isn't doing exactly that, but that's a whole other topic I need to expand on). Sunday acts with the certainty of someone who sees his own actions as justified and righteous - if you are threatening the family, the Harmony, THEIR dream, any harm that comes to you is verily justified. In that sense, he might consider an act heinous up until the very point you commit a crime so bad that this very same act becomes an acceptable punishment for you. Righteousness, when misguided, is a scary thing to go up against.
That said, I don't get violent or brutal vibes from him. He has wrath inside him (I'll make a separate post about this at some point) but he doesn't seem the type who would lash out physically. He won't strike you, he won't hurt you, he won't even carry a weapon. Something about him almost gives the impression that he still won't do so if someone were to physically assault him. Not to say he won't defend himself in some way if necessary, but I just feel like physical violence is not really in his nature (may be proven wrong on this, we'll see).
Think of his scene with Sparkle, or even the last one with Gallagher. He's the most emotional we see him throughout in those scenes and yet physically he barely changes, in Sparkle's case he doesn't even make outright threats to get her to stop. He asks her to stop and leave, telling her she is not welcome.
Now that doesn't mean he is an innocent flower who will cry if you upset him and not retaliate. Not at all. He will harm you and he will end you, if necessary, but he will do so in a more indirect way. He will trick you, lead you into a corner you can't get out of anymore, make you put yourself in grave danger or even make you kill yourself (directly, through your actions, etc). He will sacrifice you in a way where you will realize it but can't do anything about it (exhibit A: Aventurine). Rather than poison your drink in secret, he will create a situation in which you have no other choice but drink it willingly and knowingly.
If you threaten the Family, him or their cause, he will remove you if he can but he would do so by means that don't leave a dirty trail or appear like treachery. He wants to remain in control of the situation and any retaliation or act of prevention should be seen as what it is: punishment for the wicked. It should be as clean as possible. No clean-up is ever perfect so rather than make a mess and fix it, he'll spin a web you get so caught up in you cut off your own air supply before you know it and if someone then asks questions he will point out the fact that he wasn't even standing near you.
To be continued.. possibly.
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Your old social media was literally my first ever introduction to anyone identifying beyond the gender binary. In 2014, I was watching youtube videos in the small UK city I grew up in, and your videos were recommended. And I felt instant recognition when you talked about gender things, because I'm non-binary and I'd never heard of anyone identifying or expressing themselves that way when I was younger. You were the LGBT+ elder that I really appreciated advice from. (Even if you are only a few years older than me, you seemed much wiser). So I just wanted to say thank you for being your out and authentic self for so many years. Wishing you a good week. P.S. if you like cute animals, I highly recommend looking up photos of bog turtles, they definitely made my week better.
I'm really, really glad that I was able to help you!!
This definitely isn't the first time I've heard this. Notably, when I was at an anime convention years ago during that time, I had someone approach me and say essentially the same thing and also cry. Wonderful experience, also a fucking wild experience!!
It's one of the things I'm proudest of my younger self for. I was lucky enough to learn through my close friends at the time, but I definitely saw that there just. Wasn't enough information readily available for the people who might be interested. So I dug my heels in and allowed myself to be a resource, because it was important. Most of what I was doing was regurgitating what I was learning from my own elders and community, but it was important for people to have a face to the idea. Someone they could talk to and be validated by.
That was either around or over 10 years ago now. I've identified as genderqueer for over 10 years. I sometimes think about an the people who might have a similar time line just for the sake that I talked about it openly.
That time also helped me realize that I didn't want to go into activism full time. I love it, its important, but it made me realize that it would take too much out of me. Maybe I was able to handle it better because I was still being supported by family, and my only obligation (that I shirked a hell of a lot of) was highschool.
That doesn't mean I Completely stopped though. I'm one of those people you can make the joke "they'll trans your gender." I have a joke that the only people who don't end up more trans by the end of dating me are Very cis men. (I have a theory that the people who do end up "more trans" are attracted to the androgy for a reason, whether they realize or not).
I like to think it's because I know what questions to ask, not to push too hard, but more than anything, let them describe how they're feeling about their gender/sexuality with no judgements. Letting them explore it in a safe space. So my activism kind of happens there.
But more than that, I'm a hairdresser that caters toward queer/trans/gay people. That's where I feel I actually do my activism.
And I'll be real with you, I'm not out to all my clients. I work in a mixed bag neighborhood (old conservatives, young liberals, EVERYTHING inbetween) so half of that is keeping myself safe. The other half is not wanting to put extra work on myself trying to fight to explain my identify to someone who 1) doesn't actually care and 2) most likely won't actually hear a thing i say. I talk to the clients that bring it up, and come out to them if they ask. I'm not necessarily tight lipped about my queerness, but like all of us, at know how to illude without specifics. I let my clients decide their comfort level.
But my TRANS CLIENTS. They are SO important to me. I'm able to surround myself with the people I love, who I can crack a gender joke at and know I'll get a laugh. People I can really talk to about dysphoria, about hormones, about surgeries, about relationships, about sex, about family, about friends, about life in a way I don't get to with my other clients.
Even more important than that, I can make a huge step in their transition that much easier. I had a good amount of freshly cracked eggs find me after quarantine/the pandemic (it's not over). As we all know, it was a huge self reflection time. But I got to be there to be the first to validate their gender through their hair. That in itself can be an extremely nerve wracking process. My trans clients coming to me have allowed me to figure out the best way to naviagte the situation in a way where they feel comfortable and validated. It means the world to me. Seriously.
This is where I feel I actually do my activism. It's not explaining what gender is, it's not explaining pronouns. It's getting to assure someone they're on the right path. That what they're doing is good, and it's happy, and there's someone who's proud of them for going through the hard, hard process. I have people I've now been seeing for years who I've gotten to support through hormone changes, through identity changes, through relationship changes.
But one of the things I really try to stress is that being trans, while it absolutely has it's difficulty, it's supposed to be joyous. It's supposed to be the joy of being who you feel you really are. The joy of being loved for who you are. The joy of loving as you are. The joy of being loved by your community. The joy of loving life. Being trans is the joy of love, and the constant readmission that you love yourself more than anyone else can take away.
I cried a little bit writing that ngl.
Last thing I wanna say is that if I did happen to touch your life in a way that helped you become more fully realized, pass on the favor. The next time you have a friend or loved one you're getting the signals from, ask the questions. Be patient with them. Let them change their answers. Nudge but don't shove. Crack a joke. Meet them where they are.
Do it with love.
#making my OWN DAMN SELF cry before work#this stuff is still. really important to me#this got really long but if you've been here for a while you know me. this shit gets long
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Weirdly specific but helpful ask:
3, 11, 17, 28
For Kat and Quinn please?
Thank you!!
Weirdly Specific But Helpful Character Asks
3. How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?
Katherine: She's a pretty open book, and doesn't hide her emotions well. Even when she's trying to keep things hidden, she doesn't succeed as much as she'd like to.
Quinn: Pretty much the opposite - she keeps a lot locked up tight, underneath this witty, confident facade. Billy's the only one who ever really gets to see past that, and only because he's known her so long.
11. If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?
Katherine: Just get her going on some kind of historical trivia - particularly Ancient Egypt, but any decent copycat would study up on Ancient Egypt in preparation. But get her going on how makeup took form in Medieval Europe, or the fact that Dracula could theory play poker with a deck of Nintendo brand playing cards, and any copycat would become obvious real quick. The real Katherine has historical anecdotes up the wazoo.
Quinn: Ask her about her time in the hospital - a trick question, since the real Quinn would sooner eat a bucket of dirt than openly talk about it. One weaves an elaborate story about recovery, pain, nurses, etc.... the other just says "fuck off", and that's the real Quinn.
17. What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?
Katherine: Throughout her life, her vitiligo was always what she noticed first, especially since the patches tend to change over time and she can never completely get "used" to them. Recently though, she's taken to noticing her eyes first instead, since it was such an impactful thing to see Bastet with the same eyes. Other people tend to notice her vitiligo first, though, since it's such a rare and striking trait.
Quinn: I think I've answered this for her, actually, a few weeks back when I did this same ask game. Quinn notices the stubble/shadow on her cheeks, since it's one of the things that gives her the most dysphoria (especially when she first gets up and hasn't had the chance to shave yet). Others notice her style first, her punk look and pink Mohawk, and that's entirely by design - it keeps people from focusing on the details of her face, and makes her harder to identify if she loses the leather jacket and shaves her head.
28. What do they tell people they want? What do they actually want?
Katherine: Tells people that she wants to be remembered, which they usually interpret as wanting fame. Really, she doesn't care about fame, she just wants to know that her art has had impact on somebody. But that's a lot harder to explain.
Quinn: Has a long-running lie that she just wants to be rich, or that she just wants to have a fun and exciting life, and that's an excuse for why she can't give up thievery or pickpocketing no matter what it brings her. Really, she just wants to be seen for who she is, since she feels like people always view her through the lens of some bias or another - queerness, disability, college drop-out, punk-ass kid, you name it. She acts like she doesn't care, but she really does get tired of always being someone's stereotype.
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So I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD this week
It's something I've had a growing suspicion for over the last few years, accepting I was struggling and then noticing how I was struggling. And learning to reach out for help.
I don't think it's sunk in yet.
The diagnosis is not really important to me honestly, my experiences would be here with or without it. But it does help me now get access to help in different forms.
I've always been hesitant to openly relate to ADHD, some fear of labelling myself with something that I might not be. As if it's so wrong to question your experiences. It shouldn't be wrong, but it's been so hard to break past that with many things in my life.
It really took advocating for myself and trusting my experiences (and my partner who sees me a lot). Nobody else was going to tell me this. Most people likely don't see how much I struggle, not unless I'm open about it. And generally, I'm not open. So who would know but myself?
Seeing hate and vitriol against self-dxing made me afraid to speak about my own experiences. But I never understood it. Your experiences are yours, others cant know them unless you share. A diagnosis is an external observation, but those experiences are real with or without it. Your internal experience shouldn't be gatekept. Experiences should be listened to, first and foremost. Maybe sometimes a different diagnosis makes more sense, but the experiences of the person shouldn't be invalidated.
If someone relates to something, enough to question about experiences, there's probably a reason why.
Diagnoses are often gatekept behind walls of access, especially with cost. I could only look into ADHD because it became affordable and accessible. Until recently it was not possible, wanting report cards I have no access to and report about 20 years ago from a mom I'm mostly no contact with. My childhood was very irregular and disruptive, and it seemed for a while that it was just not possible to have a diagnosis done. Glad I found another route I could afford, but I can imagine many cannot. That doesn't mean their experiences aren't real.
It always comes back to trusting yourself, trusting your experiences, trusting when you relate to someone others experiences. It took me 13 years from having the thought that I was trans to come out as a transwoman. And most of that time was spent not trusting myself. Not trusting that I was relating to trans experiences, and being afraid to label myself with something unless I was absolutely certain. In the end, nobody else could tell me I was trans. I had to trust myself and what I was experiencing.
Gatekeeping only ever hurt me, made me distrust myself, invalidate and deny what I was experiencing, and silenced me from speaking or reaching out for help.
Anyways, I'll leave off with this.
I'm also suspecting some level of autism. I'll likely never pursue a diagnosis (its also very expensive), and even identifying as such is not too important to me. But, that question is there, and with or without a dx my experiences are there.
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Looks like my first true post is going to be a frustration rant.
So I work in a very male industry, and I'm male passing despite my bookishness.
Ugh, there is a lot of baggage here, so let me start from basics.
As a white guy, racists see you as part of the ingroup. You must also be racist because all these minorities are suppressing the white folk, and as such, all white folk are too scared to reveal their racist attitudes.
What this means is that racists only openly reveal themselves, as opposed to badly hiding their bigotry, when the object of their frustration leaves the room.
Example. I was working in the fuselage, and there was a black man and a couple of white guys. The second the black man was out of earshot, the racist man in the group did the look.
Anyone who passes as part of the ingroup will know what I am talking about. Suddenly, there is a change in the atmosphere as the bigot thinks they are free of view by the outgroup.
Suddenly, it's testing jokes (insults) at the expense of the outgroup. Then, especially if no one laughs, straight up hateful bigotry. It will go on as long as the outgroup isn't present and the "traitors to the ingroup" don't reveal themselves.
Unfortunately, despite my very liberal state, blue collar work is filled with the uneducated and thus ignorant. There are plenty of people who might consider themselves allies in that they disagree with the bigots on a fundamental level, but they don't act because they'd never stop. At no point would they reach the end of reporting people.
You feel surrounded, drowned by it. A match against a hurricane only moments away from violence if you let your guard down.
You are in effect in the same position as the bigot. They fear the repercussions of their bigotry from "the new order" while you fear it from the old.
They find it "easy" to identify the ingroup because they assume everyone "like them" is the ingroup. Whereas potential allies are constantly giving the same looks at eachother as the bigots, trying to sus out who is in and who is out.
It's only when an overt confrontation happens that the allies appear, and mostly in secret afterwards.
I started openly shouting Bible verses back at Christian, who would not stop harassing me, that contradicted his world view. Things that would make it very clear to those who are, at the very least not cult like to a lie they've been sold about their religion, where I stood on his behavior. One person representing the allies approached me afterwards and said "we agree with you if it makes you feel better."
I don't know if it's a guy thing or a generational trauma thing, but the general attitude is "that's just Dave, he won't change so why bother."
All this to bring me to the point I wanted to talk about at the start.
I'm part of the outgroup. I'm "part of the alphabet club," aroace. As such I sympathize with the LGBT community and view slights on them as slights on me, because they are.
I've delt with the bigots before, and typically it's at a distance so I can just turn up my music. Lately though it's been right in my face, from literally every direction. My immediate coworkers, the folks in the areas next to me, the folks on my way to other places, people in the cafeteria at the same time as me, MY DIRECT SUPERVISOR.
These ass hats I work with directly have the gual to complain about other people fighting against bigotry and hate when I had to talk to the manager on their behalf because they felt belittled by being told "alright, back to work" after our first break meetings.
I want to dissolve into the furniture. To just escape the needless hatred of ignorant people who refuse to learn.
One of them told me he just "couldn't read books" as they were too taxing.
He is one of the most competent men I have ever worked with in 15 years in this industry. Yet, despite his own disability (tourette syndrome), and despite being made fun of for it behind his back, he is one of the most hateful people I have met.
You are the diversity hire dipshit.
Let me evaporate and dream no more. Let me escape the burden of other people's thoughts.
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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗
Ahh! Thanks Medic! I love the idea of all of us sharing what we are proud of 🥰
It'll be hard to pick only 5 of my children, but here we go!
Obviously (at least to me 😅) I am most proud of my growing baby Children of Zaun. It'll be 2(!) next month, and I'm really proud that my commitment to telling this story has remained consistent. I am incredibly humbled and grateful for the readers who have stuck it out this far with this tale - especially in a fandom that feels a little dormant right now. CoZ has turned out to be a behemoth that is growing me as a writer and I am so happy its a story I get to tell.
Unfinished is next up. It was the first time I ever wrote a Reader-Insert story, and I was nervous going about it. Not only that, but I decided to make it a gender-neutral reader, which added another layer of challenge (for me, as I identify as a woman). I wanted the writing to be inclusive, but not pandering or deingenuous.
Waltzing for Three is a little diddy that wouldn't leave my head. I had a lot of fun writing it (gave me more practice with Read-Insert), and I've been pleasantly surprised at how many others enjoyed this piece 🥰 A part 2 may be gestating.
High Water I am proud of because it was my first time writing canon-Jinx. Mental illness and trauma and grief are always delicate things to write responsibly and respectfully (I think, anyway). I hope I did her justice.
Wink is another favorite of mine. I love how goofy and stupid it is 😆 Reader openly being a menace to the most dangerous man in the Undercity? Yes plz.
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i'm aroace and i've known i was asexual since i was little, since before i knew there was a word to describe it, but it's taken me forever to figure out i'm aromantic. i'm in my early 20s and it was only this year i finally understood and realized. i've been thinking about it and why it took so long.
i think it's a lot of factors—mainly amatonormativity obviously—but i also think it's because of some other things. i do enjoy some fictional romance on occasion, however, i really just couldn't and still kind of can't fully wrap my head around the fact that romance is real (i also wonder if that's because my parents aren't super affectionate?) and i can't grasp that people date and fall in love and there are people all around me including my friends and siblings who are and it's like i can't process it? i know it's also that i had no idea there were many different types of attraction and i only learned about them a couple of months ago and had a huge revelation. then it clicked and i understood why i'm only occasionally attracted to a very select few of celebrities and fictional characters and not in a romantic way. it's more platonic and it's all fantasies and daydreams in my head and i like it that way because they aren't real and can't be. those daydreams are comforting and make me happy, like i have a few people mentally holding my hand and helping me through life. that sounds kind of silly but it's kind if nice.
i now know i'm not alone in thinking romantic love was fictional and not knowing about the different types of attraction and that's a huge relief and comfort. i feel the most confident in being aromantic and asexual than i've ever felt before. that being said, it's still hard to tell people because i don't want to have to launch into a whole explanation of what they are and maybe not do a good job and then inadvertently make my points look weak and/or confuse that person or something. but for the first time in my life, i am proud and want to identify as aroace and hope to get to a place where i can openly.
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time to talk about this insta post
(because i have time on my hands and i hate myself)
So I've seen a few people react to this post and wanted to add my thoughts as someone who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community (i'm a nonbinary ace lesbian).
I realise the person who made the insta post is probably very young but they're also a cishet person talking about queer stories and queer experiences in a somewhat insensitive way and I wanted to add my two cents as someone who joined this fandom as a fifteen-year-old and at 29 is now a fandom "elder".
(update: since writing this post, i have learned that not only is the original poster 22 years old of age, but also incredibly racist, antisemitic and insensitive about people's deaths, so yeah we're not gonna be charitable to them)
firstly, as the person who made the post is cishet, it's not their place to dictate what is and isn't "good" trans representation. it's also not their place to dictate whether or not they are "a transphobic". when discussing issues around trans representation, if you aren't a part of that community, you should sit back and listen to trans people (and you might learn something so you don't look so ignorant)
it's also super weird to say sheldon bieste shouldn't be trans because "they could have just focused on unique instead". you can have more than one trans character!!! ALL the characters could be trans if you want!
i can't believe i even need to say this but ... gay and bi trans men exist. non-heterosexual trans people of all genders exist.
"i know lots of people ship them and i'm not trying to cancel your opinions..." and yet here you are, trying and failing to convince people not to ship them.
listen friend - crackships exist. shippers gonna ship. sometimes people just don't like the canon ships and that's ok.
"Klaine may have some problems but it doesn't mean there is a need to ship them with another guy" - has it occurred to you that the people who ship Kurtbastian and Seblaine don't like Klaine?
*the next point is about Kurt in Laryngitis and I don't really have anything to say about it
this is the one that I sort of agree with but I didn't like Dani (she gave me Arielle Scarcella fan vibes and was probably a TERF) so I'm biased. at the risk of sounding like one of those people who defends their fave even when they're being kind of dickbags ... the biphobia started with Dani/Santana wanting to "impress" Dani who is (a) maybe the first out lesbian she's ever met and (b) openly biphobic. I also headcanon Santana as having ADHD and think Dani was kind of a hyperfixation of hers
...if quinn not into girls why dianna play her so gay?
"i always wondered what it would be like to be with a woman" is a very fruity thing for a straight person to say let's be real
here's a fun idea though: how about let's not just assume that everyone is straight?
(again, the above image was posted by a cis straight person)
😬
honestly this section to me feels like one big huge lump of text that my audhd brain is not absorbing in the way i want it to soooooo...
ok i'm gonna try here...
"i don't get why santana tries to get brittany while she is dating artie" ummmm because she has a crush on brittany ... what, is she supposed to just turn off her feelings just because brittany's dating someone else? she is neurodivergent and a minor a 16 year old child homie, give her a break jfc...
(obviously she didn't go about her feelings towards brittany in s2 or s4 in the best way but she was also young at the time and not great at communicating but i think it's important to recognise that she did get better as the series went on and brittana grew stronger as a couple in the long run)
as for "santana doesn't recognise brittany as bi" ... santana literally said in her proposal to brittany that doing it in front of the glee club would "upset all the single guys and gals" so obviously she is aware that brittany is attracted to people of different genders and openly acknowledges it.
i genuinely don't know what to say about this... i'm more of a casual klaine enjoyer so we're not at the level of deep philosophical analysis yet but if anyone wants to take this one (looking at you, scout) be my guest.
"i don't understand the hate towards klaine in s4 as a couple" ... i mean they weren't really a couple because they were broken up for most of season 4
blaine has really grown on me recently but "i needed you and you weren't there" wasn't much of an apology
the OP of the post has also said some sketchy things about race to a twitter mutual of mine, i.e. saying mercedes is racist against white people, which ......
so ... in summary
headcanons exist. webster defines headcanon as "something that a fan imagines to be true about a character even though no information supporting that belief is spelled out in the text"
while we live in a cisheteronormative society, we should refrain from assuming everyone is cis and/or straight.
it's okay for fans to prefer a crack couple over a canon couple (as long as they tag appropriately).
if you're a cishet person in a queer space, you need to approach queer stories with care and respect, and sometimes that involves not talking when you don't have experience with something
reverse racism doesn't exist
don't be racist or antisemitic, and definitely don't say insensitive shit about people's deaths
eat the rich and fuck the patriarchy
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Hiyoko needs to be bound, gagged and left like that for the time being, with someone from her classmates (ideally Mikan lol) taking care of her biological needs while she is in this state. Hopefully would teach her that the way she was using her ability to talk was actually massively harmful for her herself foremost. As well as make her potentially way less annoying for the audience. As well as protect wildlife on Jabberwock/Hope's Peak grounds. /half-joking / I actually like and even sympathize a bit with her, but,looking at how she ends up looking for the majority of audience...
Christ I wrote such a long answer to these and now I have to retype it all. Why the fuck doesn't Tumblr have any kind of 'redo' function if it has an 'undo' function that just deletes EVERYTHING FROM THE PAST 20 MINUTES IN ONE FAT-FINGERED SWOOP?
*ahem*
Anyway, welcome back to Anti-Hiyoko Saionji Theater (tagged appropriately for your blocking needs, of course)
First Anon:
Well I understand that Mikan is the most qualified to take care of Hiyoko's biological needs in such a scenario, I don't think she should have to deal with any more of Saionji's shit either FIGURATIVELY or LITERALLY :P lol
I'm sure you understand that it's hard to sympathize with someone (regardless of their past trauma) when A) they make no real effort to change or improve themselves and B) they are such an unreliable source of information that you can't trust anything they say. Which includes the supposed "past trauma." Honestly, on my first play of DR2, I naturally assumed she was lying about her past to get some kind of pity or wrench some kind of favor/slave labor out of it. Because that is ENTIRELY IN KEEPING with her behavior everywhere else. I was sort of surprised to learn that online, she's just kinda... taken at her word on that stuff? Because she sure doesn't earn such trust.
*pokes feebly at a WIP I've worked on sporadically over the course of three or four years now* Actually, I've long been trying to build out a story where Hiyoko at least STARTS down the path of trying to be better. I hope I can get this fic to a place I'm satisfied with someday.
Second Anon:
Firstly, do I think there's some truth to what you say. Like, I can understand why a staunch feminist might feel some hesitation when faced with a situation where a woman deserves overt condemnation... because I've experienced something similar myself just recently.
Not sure where you are from, Second Anon, but in the U.S. right now, we're in the midst of a culture war over trans people (either "gender" or "sexual") and their rights. And I admit that when confronted with a rare situation where a person who identifies as trans does something Very Bad, I've had similar hesitations to talk about it or condemn it openly. Because I'm trying to work to defend the rights of trans people, and there's an inherent fear that by calling out the Bad Eggs or bringing attention to them, I'm just going to make the hateful mob feel more justified and entrenched in their fear and hate. I don't want to ever let people lose sight of the fact that for every singular story about a trans person committing some violence or other form of assault, another 300 trans people are straight-up murdered in this fucking country, and another 600+ people who call themselves trans are sexually assaulted. The situation is not remotely even. And every negative story just drives the hate that creates those huge numbers. So what do you do there? In a fair and just society, we could all agree to condemn individuals based on their own behavior without bringing race, gender identity, or sexual orientation into it whatsoever. But as things stand, there's this guilty feeling of "Can we even afford to loudly condemn this individual - regardless of how much they deserve it - if doing so could indirectly lead to more persecution and suffering and death for undeserving people?"
But okay, back to Hiyoko and/or Monomi. My immediate doubt is: Surely this logic wouldn't extend to Japanese schools/classmates, right? Nobody is going to condemn an entire class or school for the behavior of a single person, are they... ? Or would Japanese society really operate that way? I can't claim to know. Consuming media that originates from Japan doesn't give me THAT much insight into their everyday biases.
#anti-hiyoko saionji#hiyoko saionji#monomi#mikan tsumiki#asks#anon#japan#tumblr#wtf tumblr#tumblr staff
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